His book The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America (1981) was the basis of a PBS film documentary about Native American culture.

Marks was exposed as an impostor in 1984 by Assiniboine activist Hank Adams and reporter Jack Anderson in separate publications.

His pseudonym "Jamake Highwater" appeared on Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey (1973), a children's book; and The Sun, He Dies: A Novel About the End of the Aztec World (1980).

[7] Marks "gained wide public exposure"[7] as Jamake Highwater through making several documentaries on Native American culture for PBS television, and serving as host.

[1] He reportedly graduated from North Hollywood High School, attended college in Los Angeles, and gained a PhD degree by the age of 20; this information was never documented.

[2] Marks's false claims to American Indian ancestry were explored and documented by Hank Adams (Assiniboine) in a 1984 Akwesasne Notes article.

[2] Between 1982 and 1983, Marks and his Primal Mind Foundation had received more than $825,000 in federal grant money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), based on his claimed identification as Native American.

[2] His claims of Native ancestry were strongly disputed by American Indian activists and intellectuals,[2] who argued that his works were inauthentic and stereotypical.

[3] Following the major exposé by Anderson, Marks stopped claiming Cherokee heritage in his promotional literature; however, he continued to take advantage of having become publicly established as an "Indian" figure.

[6] Two years after Anderson's exposé, Marks published Shadow Show: An Autobiographical Insinuation (1986), in which he wrote: "the greatest mystery of my life is my own identity.

We ended his federal funding and TV contracts, but he's still an Indian author, he sold more books than Vine Deloria, his work is still taught in schools and universities to Native and non-Native students.

It published a copy of his 1931 birth certificate from Los Angeles, and a photograph of his father's military gravestone, marked with the Jewish symbol, a Star of David.

[1] According to Alex Jacobs, Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe) in his 1988 novel, The Trickster of Liberty, based his character Homer Yellow Snow on Jamake Highwater.