- Fonda, Jane
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▪ American actressin full Jane Seymour Fondaborn Dec. 21, 1937, New York, N.Y., U.S.American motion-picture actress who was also noted for her political activism.The daughter of actor Henry Fonda (Fonda, Henry), she left Vassar College after two years and lived in New York City. She studied acting under Lee Strasberg (Strasberg, Lee) at the Actors Studio there in 1958 and worked as a model. Her acting career began with appearances in the Broadway play There Was a Little Girl (1960) and the motion picture Tall Story (1960), and she went on to appear in comic roles in numerous films in the 1960s, including Cat Ballou (1965) and Barefoot in the Park (1967).Fonda's subsequent, more substantial roles were in such socially conscious films as They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Klute (1971), Coming Home (1978), and The China Syndrome (1979). She received Academy Awards for best actress for her performances as a prostitute in Klute and as a wife of a Vietnam War soldier in Coming Home. In 1981 she costarred with her father and Katharine Hepburn (Hepburn, Katharine) in the film On Golden Pond. Fonda's other movies in the 1980s include Agnes of God (1985) and The Morning After (1986). Following her turn as a struggling widow in Stanley & Iris (1990), Fonda took a break from acting and did not return to the screen until 2005, when she starred opposite Jennifer Lopez (Lopez, Jennifer) in the romantic comedy Monster-in-Law.In the 1970s and '80s Fonda was active on behalf of left-wing political causes. She was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War who journeyed to Hanoi in 1972 to denounce the U.S. bombing campaigns there. In the 1980s she also devised a popular exercise program. Fonda was married three times, to the French film director Roger Vadim, to the American politician Tom Hayden, and to the American broadcasting entrepreneur Ted Turner (Turner, Ted). Her autobiography, My Life So Far, was published in 2005.
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Universalium. 2010.
