Below is a compiled list of the most interesting facts about Jane Fonda. Check it out!
Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario-born New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father’s trade, she was prompted by Joshua Logan to appear with her father in the 1954 Omaha Community Theatre production of “The Country Girl”. Her interest in acting grew after meeting Lee Strasberg in 1958 and joining the Actors Studio. Her screen debut in Tall Story (1960) (directed by Logan) marked the beginning of a highly successful and respected acting career highlighted by two Academy Awards for her performances in Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978), and five Oscar nominations for Best Actress in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), The Morning After (1986) and On Golden Pond (1981), which was the only film she made with her father. Her professional success contrasted with her personal life, which was often laden with scandal and controversy. Her appearance in several risqué movies (including Barbarella (1968)) by then-husband Roger Vadim was followed by what was to become her most debated and controversial period: her espousal of anti-establishment causes and especially her anti-war activities during the Vietnam War. Her political involvement continued with fellow activist and husband Tom Hayden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1980s she started the aerobic exercise craze with the publication of the “Jane Fonda’s Workout Book”. She and Hayden divorced, and she married broadcasting mogul Ted Turner in 1991.
Interesting Facts about Jane Fonda
- Ex-stepdaughter of Susan Blanchard and Afdera Franchetti.
- The movie Swing Shift (1984) was originally written as a vehicle for Ms. Fonda. When her agent turned the movie down and Goldie Hawn took over, the project was rewritten as a partial comedy.
- She was considered for Katharine Ross’ roles in The Graduate (1967) and The Stepford Wives (1975).
- Jane Fonda was the first pick for the role of Evelyn Mulwray in Chinatown (1974), which eventually was played by Faye Dunaway. Fonda was wanted by the film’s producer Robert Evans, who was also at the time chief of production at Paramount Pictures, and by director Roman Polanski and Paramount owner Charlie Bluhdorn. After lengthy negotiations, Fonda passed on the role. Evans then contacted Faye Dunaway’s agent Sue Mengers and got her for the rock bottom price of $50,000, telling Mengers — a close friend — that he wanted Dunaway whereas everyone else wanted Fonda. Saying that he had time to intercede before Fonda signed her contract, Mengers got Dunaway to agree to the insulting offer. (Evans had explained to Mengers that after three flops in a row, Faye was a cold property.) After signing Dunaway, he told Mengers that Fonda had actually passed on the role. Mengers slammed down the phone on him. Polanski had not wanted Dunaway as his female lead due to her reputation for being temperamental, which she lived up to on the “Chinatown” shoot. She received an Oscar nomination for the role.
- In 1994, Fonda founded G-CAPP, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. The foundation advocates for safe-sex education, provides teens with support personnel before, during, and after childbirth, and runs a network of “Second Chance Homes” that help teenage mothers become self-sufficient by striving to reduce repeat teen pregnancies and providing teen mothers with a safe living environment, support for long-term economic independence, and child development, parenting and life skills.
- Unofficially adopted a 14-year-old foster daughter, Mary Luana Williams (known as Lulu), with Tom Hayden in 1982. Lulu was the fifth child of Mary & Randy Williams, a Black Panther couple Fonda met some years prior through Huey P. Newton. Lulu came to know the Haydens when she attended a summer camp they ran for disadvantaged youths in Santa Barbara in 1978.
- Ranked #9 in Men’s Health 100 Hottest Women of All Time. [2011]
- Received an honorary degree from Emerson College. [May 2000]
- She used to have a huge crush on Anthony Perkins. When they’d rehearse in her dressing room during the shooting of Tall Story (1960), Jane took off her clothes and sat suggestively powdering her body while Tony hid his face in panic behind his script. Someone finally took her aside and told her he was gay, and she stopped trying to seduce him.
- Married Ted Turner on her birthday in 1991.
- The Department of the Army reported that she allegedly provided financial and moral support to G.I. deserters. [September 1968]
- George Tuttle Brokaw, her mom’s first husband and the father of her half-sister Pan, drowned in a sanitarium swimming pool in 1935, drunk from liquor he’d snuck onto the grounds.
Personal Quotes by Jane Fonda
It’s about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by investing in teen pregnancy prevention.
Jane Fonda
A mother who is obsessing about being thin and dieting and exercising is not going to be a very good mother.
Jane Fonda
I feel like my honesty gives people the freedom to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise.
Jane Fonda
If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.
Jane Fonda
Instead of drifting along like a leaf in a river, understand who you are and how you come across to people and what kind of an impact you have on the people around you and the community around you and the world, so that when you go out, you can feel you have made a positive difference.
Jane Fonda
