Biography of Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda was born in New York City, to actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Brokaw (née Seymour). She was named after Lady Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII.

Jane's mother, Frances, was the second of Henry Fonda's five wives, and was formerly married to millionaire George Brokaw, the onetime husband of writer Clare Boothe Luce. After voluntarily seeking help at an asylum, Frances Fonda committed suicide in October 1950, when Jane was 12 years old. In Fonda's 2005 memoir, the actress wrote that while researching the book, she was granted access to her mother's psychiatric records and discovered that her mother had been sexually molested as a child, a trauma that doubtless contributed to her later emotional and mental instabilty.

Her nickname as a youth—Lady Jane—was one she reportedly disliked. She traveled to Russia in 1964 and was impressed by the people, who welcomed her warmly as Henry's daughter. In the mid-1960s she bought a farm outside of Paris, had it renovated and personally started a garden. She visited Andy Warhol's Factory in 1966. About her 1971 Oscar win, her father Henry said: "How in hell would you like to have been in this business as long as I and have one of your kids win an Oscar before you do?" Jane was on the cover of Life magazine, March 29, 1968.

While early she had grown both distant from and critical of her father for much of her young life, in 1980, she bought the play "On Golden Pond" for the purpose of acting alongside her father—hoping he might win the Oscar that had eluded him throughout his career. He won, and when she accepted the Oscar on his behalf, she said it was "the happiest night of my life." Director Roger Vadim once said about her: "Living with Jane was difficult in the beginning...she had so many, how do you say, 'bachelor habits.' Too much organization. Time is her enemy. She cannot relax. Always there is something to do." Vadim also said, "There is also in Jane a basic wish to carry things to the limit."

In 2005, Fonda published her memoirs, "My Life, So Far." In it, she candidly examines her life from early childhood, through her controversial anti-Vietnam War years, through her later life, and marriage to Ted Turner. She described herself as being affected by an internalized misogyny, which she said contributed to her lifelong habit of quickly conforming to the habits, desires, and ambitions of the men in her life at the expense of her own character.

Fonda, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, describes herself as a liberal, "feminist Christian."