Jane Fonda
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2 Opposition to the Vietnam War 3 Fonda, Kerry and the VVAW 4 Later career 5 Personal life 6 Academy Awards and Nominations 7 Filmography 8 External links |
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.
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 and Hanoi Hannah.
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. She has often been associated with a perceived anti-soldier sentiment among Vietnam War protesters, such as spitting on soldiers.
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 spat at Fonda and was beaten for it and that one POW was beaten to death for refusing to meet with her. The latter story, though, may be an exaggeration of the true account of Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. He wrote "When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I would like to tell her about the real treatment we POWs were receiving, which was far different from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Jane Fonda, as 'humane and lenient.' Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstretched arms with a piece of steel re-bar placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane every time my arms dipped." [1] [1]
To her benefit, Fonda did deliver home letters from many American POWs in Vietnam. She also is often credited with publicly exposing the strategy of bombing the dikes in Vietnam, for which she was at the time called a liar by then-UN ambassador George H. W. Bush.
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.
In the 1980s, Fonda reinvented herself in a series of workout videos.
Her mother committed suicide by cutting her throat in 1950, when Jane was 12. That same year, her father married Susan Blanchard (step-daughter of Oscar Hammerstein II, and eventually wife of Richard Widmark), who became a second mother to her until 1956.
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, the well-known actor and activist member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party. 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.
Acting career
Opposition to the Vietnam War
Jane Fonda
in Hanoi, 1971
Fonda, Kerry and the VVAW
Later career
Personal life
Academy Awards and Nominations
All for Best Actress unless noted
Filmography
External links