Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie (born Beverley Jean Santamaria; February 20, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and social activist.

Sainte-Marie's singing and writing repertoire includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism, and her work has often focused on issues facing Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada. She won recognition, awards, and honors for her music as well as her work in education and social activism. In 1983, her song "Up Where We Belong", for An Officer and a Gentleman, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 55th Academy Awards. The song also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song that same year.

From the early 1960s, Sainte-Marie stated she was of Indigenous Canadian ancestry. A 2023 CBC News investigation concluded she was born in the United States and is of Italian and English descent. Some Indigenous musicians and organizations called for awards she won while falsely claiming an Indigenous identity to be rescinded. Many of her awards and honors were subsequently revoked or surrendered due to her lack of Canadian citizenship, including her membership in the Order of Canada, her induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, her Juno Awards, and her Polaris Music Prizes.

Sainte-Marie was born at the New England Sanitarium and Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts, to Albert Santamaria and Winifred Irene Santamaria, née Kenrick. The Santamarias were from Wakefield, Massachusetts. Her father's parents were born in Italy while her mother was of English ancestry. Her family changed their surname from Santamaria to the French-sounding "Sainte-Marie" due to anti-Italian sentiment following the Second World War.

Sainte-Marie taught herself to play piano and guitar before attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.