Jane Fonda

Jane Seymour Fonda was born on December 21, 1937, at Doctors Hospital in Yorkville, Manhattan, in New York City. Her father was actor Henry Fonda, and her mother was Canadian-born socialite Frances Ford Seymour. Her brother, Peter Fonda, was also an actor. Fonda attended Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Before pursuing acting, she worked as a model and appeared twice on the cover of Vogue.

Her interest in acting developed in 1954 when she appeared alongside her father in a charity production of The Country Girl at the Omaha Community Playhouse. After leaving Vassar, she spent six months in Paris studying art. Returning to the United States in 1958, she met Lee Strasberg, whose encouragement at the Actors Studio marked a turning point in her pursuit of a performance career. Her stage work in the late 1950s laid the groundwork for her Broadway debut.

Fonda made her Broadway debut in 1960 with the play There Was a Little Girl, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play and receiving the Theatre World Award that same year. She went on to appear in additional Broadway productions including The Fun Couple, Strange Interlude, and Invitation to a March. After a 46-year absence from the stage, she returned to Broadway in 2009 in 33 Variations, a role that brought her a second Tony Award nomination, this time for Best Actress in a Play.

Her screen debut came in 1960 with the romantic comedy Tall Story, in which she recreated a Broadway role opposite Anthony Perkins. Throughout the 1960s she averaged nearly two films per year. Her early credits included Period of Adjustment and Walk on the Wild Side, both in 1962, the latter earning her a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. She starred in Sunday in New York in 1963 and achieved a major career breakthrough with the 1965 comedy western Cat Ballou, in which she played a schoolmarm-turned-outlaw. The film received five Academy Award nominations and ranked among the year's top ten box-office performers. Barefoot in the Park and Barbarella followed in 1967 and 1968, respectively. Her first husband was Barbarella director Roger Vadim.

Fonda received her first Academy Award nomination for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? in 1969 and subsequently won two Academy Awards for Best Actress — for Klute in 1971 and Coming Home in 1978. Additional Oscar nominations came for Julia in 1977, The China Syndrome in 1979, On Golden Pond in 1981, and The Morning After in 1986. She also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for The Dollmaker in 1984. Consecutive commercial successes including Fun with Dick and Jane, California Suite, The Electric Horseman, and 9 to 5 sustained her box-office standing through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 1982, Fonda released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout, which became the highest-selling VHS title ever released. Over the following 13 years she produced 22 such videos, which collectively sold more than 17 million copies. She married her second husband, politician Tom Hayden, and later married billionaire media mogul Ted Turner in 1991, at which point she retired from acting. She and Turner divorced in 2001, after which she returned to film with the comedy Monster-in-Law in 2005. Between 2009 and 2012 she released five additional exercise videos. Subsequent film credits included This Is Where I Leave You, Youth, Our Souls at Night, Book Club, and 80 for Brady. From 2015 to 2022, she starred in the Netflix comedy series Grace and Frankie, earning a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Among her honorary distinctions, Fonda received the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2007, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2014, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2017, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2025. Her total accolades include two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, along with nominations for a Grammy Award and two Tony Awards.

Beyond her performance career, Fonda was a prominent political activist during the Vietnam War era and gained the nickname "Hanoi Jane" following a 1972 visit to Hanoi during which she was photographed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. She subsequently protested the Iraq War and has spoken publicly on violence against women. She co-founded the Hollywood Women's Political Committee in 1984 and the Women's Media Center in 2005, and describes herself as a feminist and environmental activist.