Fonda has been an activist for many political causes; her counterculture era opposition to the Vietnam War and associated activities were controversial. She has protested the Iraq War and violence against women, and describes herself as a feminist. In 2005, she, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership training, and the creation of original content. Fonda currently serves on the board of the organization. She published an autobiography in 2005. In 2011, she published a second memoir, Prime Time. ContentsBackground![]() Jane with father, Navy Lieutenant (1943) On April 14, 1950, when Fonda was twelve, her mother committed suicide while under treatment at a psychiatric hospital. Later that year, Fonda's father married socialite Susan Blanchard (born 1928), just nine years his daughter's senior; this marriage ended in divorce. At 15, Fonda taught dance at Fire Island Pines, New York. She attended Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, Connecticut. Fonda attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, where she was an undistinguished student. Before starting her acting career, Fonda was a model, gracing the cover of Vogue twice. Acting career
Fonda became interested in acting in 1954, while appearing with her father in a charity performance of The Country Girl, at the Omaha Community Playhouse. After dropping out of Vassar, she went to Paris for two years to study art. Upon returning to the states, in 1958, she met Lee Strasberg and the meeting changed the course of her life, Fonda saying, "I went to the Actors Studio and Lee Strasberg told me I had talent. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone, except my father — who had to say so — told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life. I went to bed thinking about acting. I woke up thinking about acting. It was like the roof had come off my life!"Fonda in 1963 ![]() Fonda shown with photographer Alan Light following the 62nd Academy Awards in 1990. She supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers in the early 1970s, stating "Revolution is an act of love; we are the children of revolution, born to be rebels. It runs in our blood." She called the Black Panthers "our revolutionary vanguard ... we must support them with love, money, propaganda and risk." She has been involved in the feminist movement since the 1970s, which dovetails with her activism in support of civil rights. Opposition to Vietnam WarSee also: Opposition to the Vietnam War and RITA Resistance Inside the Armies § Jane Fonda and RITA ![]() Jane Fonda at an anti-Vietnam War conference in The Hague in January 1975 On May 4, 1970, Fonda appeared before an assembly at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, to speak on GI rights and issues. The end of her presentation was met with a discomforting silence. The quiet was broken when Beat poet Gregory Corso staggered onto the stage. Drunk, Corso challenged Fonda, using a four-letter expletive: Why hadn't she addressed the shooting of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard, which had just taken place? Fonda in her autobiography revisited the incident: "I was shocked by the news and felt like a fool." On the same day, she joined a protest march on the home of university president, Ferrel Heady. The protestors called themselves "They Shoot Students, Don't They?" — a reference to Fonda's recently released film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which had just had been screened in Albuquerque. In the same year, Fonda spoke out against the war at a rally organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. She offered to help raise funds for VVAW and, for her efforts, was rewarded with the title of Honorary National Coordinator. On November 3, 1970, Fonda started a tour of college campuses on which she raised funds for the organization. As noted by The New York Times, Fonda was a "major patron" of the VVAW.[citation needed] "Hanoi Jane" controversy ![]() Jane Fonda on the NVA anti-aircraft gun In North Vietnam, Fonda was photographed seated on an anti-aircraft battery; the controversial photo outraged a number of Americans. In her 2005 autobiography, she wrote that she was manipulated into sitting on the battery; she had been horrified at the implications of the pictures and regretted they were taken. In a recent entry at her official website, Fonda explained: It happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit ... The translator told me that the soldiers wanted to sing me a song. He translated as they sung. It was a song about the day 'Uncle Ho' declared their country's independence in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square. I heard these words: "All men are created equal; they are given certain rights; among these are life, Liberty and Happiness." These are the words Ho pronounced at the historic ceremony. I began to cry and clap. These young men should not be our enemy. They celebrate the same words Americans do. The soldiers asked me to sing for them in return ... I memorized a song called "Day Ma Di", written by anti-war South Vietnamese students. I knew I was slaughtering it, but everyone seemed delighted that I was making the attempt. I finished. Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me ... Here is my best, honest recollection of what happened: someone (I don't remember who) led me towards the gun, and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. The cameras flashed ... It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. But if they did I can't blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen ... a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever ... But the photo exists, delivering its message regardless of what I was doing or feeling. I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm. During her trip, Fonda made ten radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals". Fonda has defended her decision to travel to North Vietnam and her radio broadcasts. During the course of her visit, Fonda visited American prisoners of war (POWs), and brought back messages from them to their families. When cases of torture began to emerge among POWs returning to the United States, Fonda called the returning POWs "hypocrites and liars", adding "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." Later, on the subject of torture used during the Vietnam War, Fonda told The New York Times in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture ... but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie." Fonda said the POWs were "military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to the law". Her visits to the POW camp led to persistent and exaggerated rumors which were repeated widely in the press and continued to circulate on the Internet decades later. Fonda has personally denied the rumors. Interviews with two of the alleged victims specifically named in the emails showed these allegations to be false as they had never met Fonda. In 1972, Fonda helped fund and organize the Indochina Peace Campaign, which continued to mobilize antiwar activists across the nation after the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement, through 1975, when the United States withdrew from Vietnam. Because of her time in North Vietnam, the ensuing circulated rumors regarding the visit, and statements made following her return, resentment against her among veterans and those currently serving in the U.S. military still exists. For example, for many years at the U.S. Naval Academy, when a plebe shouted out "Goodnight, Jane Fonda!", the entire company replied "Goodnight, bitch!" This practice has since been prohibited by the academy's Plebe Summer Standard Operating Procedures. In 2005, Michael A. Smith, a U.S. Navy veteran, was arrested for disorderly conduct in Kansas City, Missouri, after he spat chewing tobacco in Fonda's face during a book-signing event for her autobiography, My Life So Far. He told reporters that he "consider[ed] it a debt of honor", adding "she spit in our faces for 37 years. It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did." Fonda refused to press charges. Regrets In a 1988 interview with Barbara Walters, Fonda expressed regret for some of her comments and actions, stating: I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families. [...] I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless. Some critics responded that her apology came at a time when a group of New England Veterans had launched a campaign to disrupt a film project she was working on, leading to the charge that her apology was motivated at least partly by self-interest. In a 60 Minutes interview on March 31, 2005, Fonda reiterated that she had no regrets about her trip to North Vietnam in 1972, with the exception of the anti-aircraft-gun photo. She stated that the incident was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege". Fonda said, "The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine." She later distinguished between regret over the use of her image as propaganda and pride for her anti-war activism: "There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with the POWs. Both sides were using the POWs for propaganda ... It's not something that I will apologize for." Fonda said she had no regrets about the broadcasts she made on Radio Hanoi, something she asked the North Vietnamese to do: "Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war." Subject of government surveillance In 2013, it was revealed that Fonda was one of approximately 1,600 Americans whose communications between 1967 and 1973 were monitored by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) as part of Project Minaret, a program that some NSA officials have described as "disreputable if not downright illegal". Fonda's communications, as well as those of her husband, Tom Hayden, were intercepted by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Under the UKUSA Agreement, the GCHQ sent the intercepted data on Americans to the U.S. government. Feminist causesFonda has been a longtime supporter of feminist causes, including V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women, inspired by the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues, of which she is an honorary chairperson. She was present at their first summit in 2002, bringing together founder Eve Ensler, Afghan women oppressed by the Taliban, and a Kenyan activist campaigning to save girls from genital mutilation.In 2001, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia to help prevent adolescent pregnancy through training and program development. On February 16, 2004, Fonda led a march through Ciudad Juárez, with Sally Field, Eve Ensler, and other women, urging Mexico to provide sufficient resources to newly appointed officials helping investigate the murders of hundreds of women in the rough border city. That same year, she served as a mentor to the first ever all-transsexual cast of The Vagina Monologues. In the days before the September 17, 2006 Swedish elections, Fonda went to Sweden to support the new political party Feministiskt initiativ in their election campaign. In My Life So Far, Fonda stated that she considers patriarchy to be harmful to men as well as women. She also states that for many years, she feared to call herself a feminist, because she believed that all feminists were "anti-male". But now, with her increased understanding of patriarchy, she feels that feminism is beneficial to both men and women, and states that she "still loves men", adding that when she divorced Ted Turner, she felt like she had also divorced the world of patriarchy, and was very happy to have done so. Native AmericansFonda went to Seattle, Washington, in 1970 to support a group of Native Americans who were led by Bernie Whitebear. The group had occupied part of the grounds of Fort Lawton, which was in the process of being surplussed by the United States Army and turned into a park. The group was attempting to secure a land base where they could establish services for the sizable local urban Indian population, protesting that "Indians had a right to part of the land that was originally all theirs." The endeavor succeeded and the Daybreak Star Cultural Center was constructed in the city's Discovery Park.Israeli–Palestinian conflictIn December 2002, Fonda visited Israel and the West Bank as part of a tour focusing on stopping violence against women. She demonstrated with Women in Black against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip outside the residence of Israel's Prime Minister. She later visited Jewish and Arab doctors and patients at a Jerusalem hospital, followed by visits to Ramallah to see a physical rehabilitation center, and a Palestinian refugee camp. She was heckled by three members of Women in Green as she arrived for a meeting with leading Israeli feminists.[unreliable source?]In September 2009, she was one of more than 1,500 signatories to a letter protesting the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival's spotlight on Tel Aviv. The protest letter said that the spotlight on Tel Aviv was part of "the Israeli propaganda machine" because it was supported in part by funding from the Israeli government and had been described by the Israeli Consul General Amir Gissin as being part of a Brand Israel campaign intended to draw attention away from Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. Other signers included actor Danny Glover, musician David Byrne, journalist John Pilger, and authors Alice Walker, Naomi Klein, and Howard Zinn. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center stated that "People who support letters like this are people who do not support a two-state solution. By calling into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv, they are supporting a one-state solution, which means the destruction of the State of Israel." Hier continued, saying that "it is clear that the script [the protesters] are reading from might as well have been written by Hamas." Fonda, in The Huffington Post, said she regretted some of the language used in the original protest letter and how it "was perhaps too easily misunderstood. It certainly has been wildly distorted. Contrary to the lies that have been circulated, the protest letter was not demonizing Israeli films and filmmakers." She continued, writing "the greatest 're-branding' of Israel would be to celebrate that country's long standing, courageous and robust peace movement by helping to end the blockade of Gaza through negotiations with all parties to the conflict, and by stopping the expansion of West Bank settlements. That's the way to show Israel's commitment to peace, not a PR campaign. There will be no two-state solution unless this happens." Fonda emphasized that she, "in no way, support[s] the destruction of Israel. I am for the two-state solution. I have been to Israel many times and love the country and its people." Several prominent Atlanta Jews subsequently signed a letter to The Huffington Post rejecting the vilification of Fonda, who they described as "a strong supporter and friend of Israel". Opposition to the Iraq WarSee also: Opposition to the Iraq War
Fonda argued that the military campaign in Iraq will turn people all over the world against America, and asserted that a global hatred of America would result in more terrorist attacks in the aftermath of the war. In July 2005, Fonda announced plans to make an anti-war bus tour in March 2006 with her daughter and several families of military veterans, saying that some of the war veterans she had met while on her book tour had urged her to speak out against the Iraq War. She later canceled the tour, due to concerns that she would distract attention from Cindy Sheehan's activism.In September 2005, Fonda was scheduled to join British politician and anti-war activist George Galloway at two stops on his U.S. book tour, Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago. She canceled her appearances at the last minute, citing instructions from her doctors to avoid travel following recent hip surgery. On January 27, 2007, Fonda participated in an anti-war rally and march held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., declaring that "silence is no longer an option". Fonda spoke at an anti-war rally earlier in the day at the Navy Memorial, where members of the organization Free Republic picketed in a counter protest. Fonda and KerryIn the 2004 presidential election, her name was used as a disparaging epithet against John Kerry, the former VVAW leader, who was then the Democratic Party presidential candidate. Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie called Kerry a "Jane Fonda Democrat". Also, Kerry's opponents circulated a photograph showing Fonda and Kerry in the same large crowd at a 1970 anti-war rally, although they were sitting several rows apart. A faked composite photograph, which gave the false impression that the two had shared a speaker's platform, was also circulated.![]() Jane Fonda at a book signing, 2005 Writing
On April 5, 2005, Random House released Fonda's autobiography My Life So Far. The book describes her life as a series of three acts, each thirty years long, and declares that her third "act" will be her most significant, due in part to her commitment to the Christian religion, and that it will determine the things for which she will be remembered. |
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