Actors - Jane Fonda

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	Actors - Jane Fonda

Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actor, writer, producer, and political activist. Fonda describes herself as a liberal, and more recently, a feminist and a born-again Christian. She appeared in a variety of movies starting in the 1960s and won two Academy Awards. Although she announced her retirement from acting in 1991, she returned to film in 2005 with Monster in Law. Fonda has also served many political causes, including activism against the Vietnam War and Iraqi War. She published an autobiography in 2005 and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ancestry and family

Jane Fonda was born in New York City to actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour. Seymour, who was of Irish and German descent, was the second of Fonda's five wives, and had previously been married to millionaire George Tuttle Brokaw. In 1950, when Jane was twelve years old, Seymour committed suicide after voluntarily seeking treatment at a psychiatric hospital.

Although Henry Fonda was primarily of Dutch and British descent, the surname Fonda originates in Italy. Her name was apparently inspired by Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII of England. She was frequently called "Lady Jane" or "Lady", as a child, nicknames she greatly disliked.

Her brother Peter Fonda (born 1940) and his daughter Bridget Fonda (born 1964) are also actors. She has an older half-sister, Frances Brokaw, as well as an adopted sister, Amy, who was born in 1953.

Acting career

Fonda first became interested in acting in 1954, while appearing with her father in a charity performance of The Country Girl
, at the Omaha Community Theatre. After attending Vassar College in New York, she was introduced by her father to renowned drama teacher Lee Strasberg in 1958, and subsequently joined his Actors Studio.

1960s

Her stage work in the late 1950s laid the foundation for her film career in the 1960s. She averaged almost two movies a year throughout the decade, starting in 1960 with Tall Story, in which she recreated one of her Broadway roles as a college cheerleader pursuing a basketball star, played by Anthony Perkins. Period of Adjustment and Walk on the Wild Side
followed in 1962. In Walk on the Wild Side Fonda played a prostitute, and earned a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer.

In 1963 she appeared in Sunday in New York. Newsday called her "the loveliest and most gifted of all our new young actresses". However, she also had her detractors—in the same year the Harvard Lampoon named her the "Year's Worst Actress". Fonda's career breakthrough came with Cat Ballou
(1965), in which she played a schoolmarm turned outlaw. This comedy Western received five Oscar nominations and was one of the year's top ten films at the box office. It was considered by many to have been the film that brought Fonda to stardom at the age of twenty-eight. After this came the comedies Any Wednesday (1966) and Barefoot in the Park
(1967), the latter co-starring Robert Redford.

In 1968, she played the title role in the science fiction spoof Barbarella
, which established her as a leading sex symbol. In contrast, the tragedy They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
(1969) won her critical acclaim, and she earned her first Oscar nomination for the role. Fonda was very selective by the end of the 1960s, turning down lead roles in Rosemary's Baby
and Bonnie and Clyde
, films widely praised by critics and considered box-office successes.

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Actors - Jane Fonda

Ancestry and family

Acting career

1960s

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