Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937 in New York City) is an American actress, political activist, and former fashion model. Daughter of the legendary Henry Fonda, she followed her father into acting. She is the sister of Peter Fonda and aunt of Bridget Fonda. After achieving a great deal of notability (as well as a large male fanbase) for her roles in such films as Cat Ballou, Barefoot in the Park, Barbarella, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and Klute, for which she won an Oscar, she pulled the PR gaffe to end all PR gaffes.
Fonda, like many of her generation, protested The Vietnam War. However, going to Hanoi in 1972note and publicly supporting North Vietnam (including allowing herself to be photographed sitting on an AA gun) was a step too far for the American public, gaining her the nickname "Hanoi Jane". She later apologized for the photo, but maintained her opposition to the Vietnam War, and many Americans still see her as a traitor. For many decades, "latrine targets" with her picture are commonly found in US military urinals. It didn't help that she also made broadcasts on Radio Hanoi that (whether intended to or not) were exploited by the North Vietnamese for propaganda purposes, and helped in using American POWs as props at a staged press conference to "prove" to the world that those POWs were not actually being mistreated and were merely opportunistic liars, and for years after the war insisted that the torture was not systemic. (That said, the second part of the story — that Fonda deliberately betrayed POWs who asked her to smuggle messages back home to their captors — was totally made up
.)
Her career waned in the mid-'70s, but she made a successful comeback at the end of that decade, winning her second Oscar for the 1978 Vietnam War film Coming Home. In 1980, she had one of her greatest commercial successes with 9 to 5. In 1981, she appeared as Henry Fonda's daughter in On Golden Pond.
In The '80s, she released a series of very successful workout videos, popularizing aerobics. In 1990 she retired from filmmaking, but returned in 2005 with Monster-in-Law. In 2009 she appeared on Broadway again for the first time in 46 years, in 33 Variations, a play about a scholar of the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Between 2012 and 2014, she appeared in a recurring role in the TV series The Newsroom. Between 2015 and 2022 she has starred in the Netflix original series Grace and Frankie.
An outspoken liberal, she has been politically active in several causes; she has supported civil rights, the feminist movement, and Native American rights, and opposed the Iraq War. She was married three times, to director Roger Vadim (1965-1973), political activist Tom Hayden (1973-1990) and media mogul Ted Turner (1990-2001); all three marriages ended with divorce.
She has won two Oscars (for Klute and Coming Home) and has been nominated for five more (for They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Julia, The China Syndrome, On Golden Pond, and The Morning After).
Oh, and she has made out with Stephen Colbert.
Partial filmography:
- Cat Ballou (1965)
- Hurry Sundown (1967)
- Barefoot in the Park (1967)
- Barbarella (1968)
- Spirits of the Dead (1968)
- They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
- Klute (1971)
- The Blue Bird (1976)
- Fun with Dick and Jane (1977)
- Julia (1977)
- California Suite (1978)
- Coming Home (1978)
- The China Syndrome (1979)
- The Electric Horseman (1979)
- 9 to 5 (1980)
- On Golden Pond (1981)
- Agnes of God (1985)
- Monster-in-Law (2005)
- Georgia Rule (2007)
- The Butler (2013)
- Better Living Through Chemistry (2014)
- This Is Where I Leave You (2014)
- Grace and Frankie (2015-2022)
- Elena of Avalor (2016)
- Luck (2022)
- 80 for Brady (2023)
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)
