JANE FONDA

Jane Fonda was born in New York City in 1937. One might have thought this beautiful daughter of one of the finest actors ever, Henry Fonda, would have immediately gone into movies, but it wasn't until she was 23 that she first appeared in a movie (starring in Tall Story in 1960 opposite Anthony Perkins). She appeared mostly in romantic movies the next few years. In 1964 she starred in French director Roger Vadim's La Ronde, and the following year she married him. She starred in his Barbarella in 1968, causing a sensation by appearing mostly nude. The following year her career took a major new turn with her starring role in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, marking the beginning of her "serious" acting stage. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Klute in 1971, and in 1973 she divorced Vadim, and married anti-War activist Tom Hayden, and briefly "retired" to become a mother and full-time anti-War protester. In 1972 she went to Hanoi in North Vietnam (while the war was being fought) and she supported the North Vietnamese, which earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane" and the everlasting hatred of a significant segment of the U.S. population (many years later she apologized and said, "It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done"). She returned to movies in 1976, and had several significant roles in popular movies of all sorts, such as: China Syndrome (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Julia (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Klute (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Coming Home (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Nine To Five, Morning After (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and in 1981 she co-starred with her father in On Golden Pond (nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for this film). In 1982 she started the aerobics craze with her "Jane Fonda's Workout" video, which sold 17 million copies. She later said that from age 13 to 37 she suffered from bulimia. In 1989 she divorced Hayden and in 1991, when it seemed she could not possibly shock anyone anymore, she married wacko media mogul Ted Turner. Her movie appearances have been few in recent years. In 2000 she again surprised the world when she separated from Turner and announced she was a born again Christian! As of 2023, she is still alive at the age of 85.