Attended Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY. Her roommate was
Lara Parker.
Is the subject of an erroneous urban legend. When Vassar was a women's college, the story goes, Jane Fonda refused to wear the elegant white gloves and pearls that were the attire for the daily Tea in the Rose Parlor. When confronted, Fonda returned to the parlor wearing the gloves and the pearls, and nothing else.
Retired from acting in 1991, but returned to the screen fourteen years later.
Arrested and charged with drug smuggling (November 1970).
Her birth was the cause of some interruptions during her father's filming of
Jezebel (1938) with
Bette Davis.
She was, and still is, an exercise maven.
Fonda was arrested in 1970 after allegedly kicking a cop when she was found carrying a large amount of what appeared to be pills. All charges were dropped after the pills were identified as vitamins.
Was offered the role of Chris MacNeil in
The Exorcist (1973).
Jane now openly admits that she suffered from bulimia from age 13 to age 37. While modeling, she said she lived on cigarettes, coffee, speed, and strawberry yogurt.
Shortly after her divorce from
Ted Turner, she announced she had become a born-again Christian. Speculations are that this may have played a part in their seperation, since Ted Turner has expressed highly critical opinions on religion in general.
The suicide of her socialite mother Frances Seymour Brokaw was kept from her as a teenager, and she was told that she'd died of heart failure. Household newspaper and magazine subscriptions were canceled, and the staff and student body of Fonda's high school were instructed not to discuss the incident. Fonda learned the truth months later while leafing through a movie magazine in art class.
Her out-of-retirement movie,
Monster-in-Law (2005) came out the same time as her autobiography, "My Life So Far" and the same time her workouts are re-released to DVD format in stores.
Protested alongside fellow actresses
Sally Field &
Christine Lahti, and playwright
Eve Ensler urging the Mexican government to re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-Texas border. (February 2004)
Was nominated for Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "There Was a Little Girl."
In 1982, she accepted the Oscar for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" on behalf of her father
Henry Fonda, who wasn't present at the awards ceremony
Of the Oscar-winning father-daughter couples, she and her father are one of two couples (the other is
Hayley Mills/
John Mills) where the daughter won an Academy award before the father did. Hayley Mills' Oscar was an honorary award for
Pollyanna (1960), "...[T]he most outstanding juvenile performance during 1960". Juveniles were not allowed to compete for Oscars until the late 1960s, when the juvenile award was abandoned.
She and her father were the first father-daughter couple to be Oscar-nominated the same year (1982).
Her father was of Italian and Dutch descent and her mother was of Irish and German descent.
Is fluent in French.
Passed on the title role in
Norma Rae (1979), which won a Best Actress Oscar for its eventual star
Sally Field.
Was listed as a potential nominee on the 2006 Razzie Award nominating ballot. She was listed as a suggestion in the Worst Actress category for her performance in the film
Monster-in-Law (2005). She failed to receive a nomination, however. (Had she gotten the nomination, it would have been her first Razzie nomination in 16 years. She was previously nominated for Worst Actress at the 1990 Razzie Awards for her performance in the film
Old Gringo (1989).)
In her modeling days after college, she was twice on the cover of Vogue magazine.
Her performance as Bree Daniels in
Klute (1971) is ranked #91 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
She and her father
Henry Fonda are the only father-daughter couple to receive Oscars for leading roles.
A 1972 visit to Hanoi during the Vietnam war where Fonda campaigned in favor of the communist regime and the subsequent release of several photographs of her atop a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun used against American air crews earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane." As a result of her visit to Hanoi and the accompanying photographs, many Americans continue to regard Fonda with general resentment and hostility to this day.
Visited Sweden in September 2006 to support political party FI (Feministic Initiative) in the national election. FI focuses on issues that will benefit women and is led by the previous leader of Sweden's communist party. Coincidentally, "fi" is also the Swedish military abbreviation for "enemy".
Was born double-jointed.
Turned down the role of Bonnie Parker, then played by
Faye Dunaway, in
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Living in France at the time, she did not want to relocate to the U.S. for the part.
In 1984, her wealth, generated from acting, producing, and fitness videos was estimated at $50 million.
Announced that she became a Christian (2001).
Her aerobics video "Jane Fonda's Workout" sold 17 million copies, making it the best-selling home video ever and her an icon of this form of exercises (1982).
Danced ballet until she broke her foot in her 40s.
She was a close friend of
Gregory Peck, and he frequently attended political rallies with her.
Nominated for the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance for a Leading Actress in a Play for "33 Variations".
Recovering from left knee replacement surgery [June 17, 2009].
Claimed, after the Oscar ceremony on April 9th, 1979, that the film
The Deer Hunter (1978) was a racist film and that it presented the official version of the war in Vietnam.
Is widely considered to be one of the first women to frequently play romantic leads in films after 40.
Had hip and knee replacements. It is a genetic condition. Both her father and brother also had replacements.
Has two grandchildren, Malcom and Vivienne, by her daughter
Vanessa Vadim. She also has several step-grandchildren from her marriages to
Ted Turner and the late
Roger Vadim who she is close with.

Personal Quotes
Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution.
I was terrified when I turned 30. I was pregnant and had the mumps and
Faye Dunaway was just coming out in
Bonnie and Clyde (1967). I thought, 'Oh my God, I'll never work again. I'm old!'
"Acting with [Laurence] Harvey is like acting by yourself - only worse" - Jane Fonda on her 1962 film
Walk on the Wild Side (1962).
People think actresses find public speaking easy, and it's not easy at all; we're used to hiding behind masks.
[Accepting her father's Oscar for
On Golden Pond (1981)]: "I'll bet when he heard it just now, he said 'Hey ain't I lucky?' As if luck had anything to do with it".
I would have given up acting in a minute. I didn't like how it set me apart from other people.
When I start down a path that I know is the right path, I go with all of me.
I'm a very brave person. I can go to North Vietnam, I can challenge my government, but I can't challenge the man I'm with if means I'm going to end up alone.
It's hard to imagine a happy ending to the US-led war in Iraq. What's it going to mean for stability as a nation, for terrorism, for the economy I can't imagine. I think the entire world is going to be united against us.
Ted [Turner] needs someone to be there 100 percent of the time. He thinks that's love. It's not love. It's babysitting.
I wanted to do a tour like I did during the Vietnam War, a tour of the country. But then
Cindy Sheehan filled in the gap, and she is better at this than I am. I carry too much baggage.
When I left the West Coast I was a liberal. When I landed in New York I was a revolutionary.
Oh
Henry Fonda's love of the Theater: I'm becoming obsessed with his presence in my head, because my dad adored theater. He didn't talk much, but he would talk about how he loved the immediacy of a live audience. I was never comfortable enough in my own skin 45 years ago to be able to understand it. I just wanted to escape. And now it's like, 'Oh Dad, I wish you were here and alive, so I could say to you: "I get it! I'm finally able to experience what you were talking about."
Why she quit acting while married to
Tom Hayden: When I was really, really unhappy with myself and my life, which happened in the second half of my marriage to Tom, I just stopped. Acting became too painful. I just couldn't. All the joy leached out of it.
On returning to the stage in 2009: I am not the same person I was. I really am a different person. And I feel now that I could really be better than I have ever been in acting. It felt like something I had left prematurely. I didn't complete it, and I wanted to see if I could find joy in it again. It's been 45, 46 years since I was last on
Broadway, and it feels like it too, in the sense of my personal trajectory. I feel that in terms of my personal development there has been at least half a century in there. Thank God.
It's always great to rehearse on a plane because people think you're mad.
Emotionality is really easy for me. My father always said that Fonda's can cry at a good steak.
Dating's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Nor do I miss it, frankly. I feel 71 years old. I do. I'm really aware of the miles that have been logged and of the life that has gone under the bridge and how it has made me grow. I'm someone who has always tried to think about what it has all meant. I'm a quester. So I feel my age. I feel grown up.
Mykie's Note:
What more I say about Jane Fonda That you haven't already read above you. Why is this amazing woman one of my Beauty Icon's? Well, it's for many reasons and I wont go on to long about her, i think this posting is already very long and your all very sweet if your still reading this far down the page. Jane Fonda is someone I want to have tea with, you know and just chat and discuss life and the ups and the downs of it all. I have felt at an early age that if I could just meet her that we would become fast friends. The oldest recollection i have of watching Jane on film was when I was actually rather young, its was a Sunday afternoon and channel 5 used to play these old movies, great ones, kinda like get your family around and spend time together hour, kinda thing and its was 1967's
BAREFOOT IN THE PARK with Robert Redford, i can still remember my mother saying, "hum, He so handsome that Mr.Redford is," to myself I was thinking, he's OK, see at the time I was about 11 and even then I wasn't into Blonds . Then in 1979, my mom and sister and I would go see a movie once a week, just the 3 of us and each week we would each get to pick the movie, well it happened that week that
THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN opened in the theaters. Wow, Funny Robert Redford was in both of those films. To this day
THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN is one of my favorite film to be watched at least once a year and with mo mom usually.
If you notice I really didn't add to much about the Vietnam controversy and the whole Hanoi Jane saga, I just think at this point in the world and with all that she has done and continues to do with her life and for others with the vast amounts of charity she does, it seemed rather useless and just a waste of energy and Who cares, if your still seeing red over her involvement in the Vietnam war or what you think she was involved with, then I'm sorry to say that your the one that needs to sit back and think about all the time and hate you have vested in your life.
Not only is she beautiful, i mean come on, she's BARBARELLA! I can't tell you how many times this film and the way she looked in it has come up in reference to makeup and photo shoots that I have done in my many years of painting faces. The body of work this woman has given us it truly amazing , she becomes every person she portrays. Its funny she's an actress but what you see and hear on film is anything but acting, its just grace, breath and truth, she just is that person. A career high for me would be to work with her in any way actually, dang I'll get her coffee if she wants it, i was close once, we actually both worked together on the same project, COMPLICATED WOMAN, for Tuner Classic Movies Channel, but she only lent her voice as narrator, but hey its a start!
So of course with all Beauty Icon postings I select my favorite Films, and I would like to present you with my all time favorite films of Jane Fonda, that move, inspire and just delight me.
SELECTED FILMS OF JANE FONDA
1961- Walk On The Wildside
1962- Period Of Adjustment [Golden Globe :Best Actress]
1963- Sunday In New York
1965- Cat Ballou [Golden Globe: Best Actress]
1966- Any Wednesday
1967- Barefoot In The Park
1968- Barbarella
1969- They Shoot Horses Don't They?
1971- Klute [Acadamy Award: Best Actress & Golden Globe: Best Actress]
1973- Steelyard Blues
A Doll's House
1977- Julia [Golden Globe: Best Actress & BAFTA: Best Actress]
1978- Coming Home [Acadamy Award: Best Actress & Golden Globe: Best Actress]
1979- The China Syndrome [BAFTA AWARD; Best Actress]
The Electric Horesman
1980- Nine To Five
1981- One Golden Pond { not a fav, but because its with her dad]
1984 The Dollmaker [Emmy Award: Best Actress]
1985- Agnes Of God
1986- The Morning After
1990- Stanley & Iris
2005- Monster-in -Law