Jane Fonda

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Jane Seymour Fonda (b. New York City, December 21, 1937) is an Academy Award winning, and sometimes notorious, American actress who is the daughter of actor Henry Fonda and his second wife, New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw (formerly Mrs. George Tuttle Brokaw). Though her father’s middle name was Jaynes and her mother's maiden name was Seymour, she was named after Lady Jane Seymour (the third wife of King Henry VIII).

Acting career

In 1954, Jane joined her father on stage with the Omaha Community Theatre in a production of The Country Girl. She attended Vassar College, met Lee Strasberg in 1958, and joined his Actors Studio. Fonda's screen debut in the frivolous Tall Story in 1960 did not presage the more serious work that would become her trademark. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1971 for Klute and in 1978 for Coming Home, and was nominated five more times.

Opposition to the Vietnam War

Fonda became involved in political activism during the time of the Vietnam War, and became the target of hatred from many Americans for her visit to Hanoi where she advocated opposition to the war. During this visit she acquired the nickname Hanoi Jane, comparing her to Tokyo Rose.

Although the war was largely protested at home by this time, and many Americans were against the war, her actions were widely perceived as over the top.

The anti-war movement of the time was not characterized by a single motivation: some, such as Quakers and other traditionally pacifist groups were opposed to war in any circumstances; some felt that the war was not an American responsibility or concern, arguing especially that it was a civil war in which the US was choosing sides; some, such as young men of draft age, their parents and friends, didn't want their lives risked in an unpopular war; but some expressed a partisanship for the opposing side in the war, and it was Fonda's identification with that group that made her such a polarizing figure.

When Jane Fonda was honored by Barbara Walters in 1999 as one of the 100 great women of the century, sentiments regarding Fonda's actions in Vietnam were rekindled. Rumors that Fonda handed over information about US soldiers to the Viet Cong are provably untrue, as are reports that a pilot spit at Fonda and was beaten for it and that one POW was beaten to death for refusing to meet with her.

Fonda posed for a picture at an anti-aircraft battery and participated in several radio broadcasts. She also visited American prisoners of war who assured her that they had neither been tortured nor brainwashed. Fonda believed these claims and relayed them to the American public. When cases of torture began to emerge among POWs returning to the United States, Fonda called them liars. She also added, concerning the POWs she met, "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." To her benefit, Fonda did deliver home letters from many American POWs in Vietnam.

Fonda, Kerry and the VVAW

In 1988, Fonda apologized for her actions to the American POWs and their families. Fonda continues to participate in peace activism, in particular regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2004, her name has been used as a disparaging epithet against Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry by Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, who called Kerry a "Jane Fonda Democrat".

In an effort to link Kerry's Vietnam War policies with Fonda, a doctored photograph made the rounds of the Internet, showing Kerry and Fonda speaking at a Vietnam Veterans Against the War program. In fact, Fonda did not attend the event. There is, however, an undoctored photo of Fonda and Kerry attending a similar event, although the two are simply seen sitting in the audience, several rows apart, and it was before Fonda's famous visit to Vietnam.

In fact, as noted by the New York Times, Fonda was a "major patron" of the VVAW, but when Kerry was involved, contemporaries recount, he often took steps to moderate the group's actions. "When he organized the mass march on Washington that resulted in his Senate testimony, Ms. Fonda was nowhere to be seen.". There was much debate in VVAW as to whether to include her in the group at all.

"I think Kerry made a big effort not to have me invited to participate in that," Ms. Fonda said in a telephone interview [recently]. "Because I think he wanted the organization to distance itself from me, that I was too radical or something." [1]

Later career

In the 1980s, Fonda reinvented herself in a series of workout videos.

Personal life

Her mother committed suicide by cutting her throat in 1950, when Jane was 12. Jane Fonda has been married three times. Her first husband (1965-73) was French film director Roger Vadim (b.1928-d.2000) with whom she had a daughter, Vanessa, named for Vanessa Redgrave. Her second husband (1973-1990) was author and politician Tom Hayden, by whom she has a son, Troy Garity, and an adopted daughter. Her third husband (1991-2001) was American cable-television tycoon Ted Turner.

Academy Awards and Nominations

All for Best Actress unless noted

Filmography

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