Don’t care if he was Sicilian. His “crying Native American” anti-littering commercial made a huge impact. It says a lot about the US that you don’t see these kinds of PSAs anymore.
My only complaint about that is growing up native, there were several times when a person I had just randomly met would look at me and say, are you native? To which I would say yes I am, and they would say what tribe, and I would say Lakota, and they would say if I throw this piece of trash on the ground will it bring a tear to your eye? And I would then murder them.
That PSA may have prevented a lot of littering but it also cost a lot of lives.
Plenty of Native Americans who could have filled those roles, and were doing actual environmental activism instead of a kitchy, fake act. He did it for profit.