Fonda Jane - Jane Fonda: the private life of a public woman

First Mariner Books edition 2012

Copyright 2011 by Patricia Bosworth

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Bosworth, Patricia.
Jane Fonda : the private life of a public woman / Patricia Bosworth.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-547-15257-8
1. Fonda, Jane, 1937- 2. ActorsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
PN 2287. F 56 B 78 2011
791.4302'8092dc22
[B]
2011009144

e ISBN 978-0-547-50447-6
v4.0414

Photo credits appear at the end of the book.

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from the following works: My Life So Far by Jane Fonda, copyright 2005, 2006 by Jane Fonda, published by Ebury Press. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. Fonda: My Life by Henry Fonda and Howard Teichmann, copyright 1981 by Howard Teichmann and Orion Productions, Inc. Used by permission of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Dont Tell Dad: A Memoir by Peter Fonda, copyright 1998 by Peter Fonda. Used by permission of Hyperion. All rights reserved. Jane: An Intimate Biography of Jane Fonda by Thomas Kiernan, copyright 1973 by Thomas Kiernan. Reprinted by permission of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. The Fondas: A Hollywood Dynasty by Peter Collier, copyright 1991 by Peter Collier, Inc. Used by permission of G. P. Putnams Sons, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author. Memoirs of the Devil by Roger Vadim, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. Reprinted by kind permission of the Estate of Roger Vadim and Editions Stock.

for Tom

We are so many selves. Its not just the long-ago child within us who needs tenderness and inclusion, but the person we were last year, wanted to be yesterday, tried to become in one job or in one winter, in one love affair or in one house where even now, we can close our eyes and smell the rooms. What brings together these ever-shifting selves of infinite reactions and returnings is this: There is always one true inner voice. Trust it.

GLORIA STEINEM , REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN

O NLY JANE FONDA could upstage Oprah Winfrey. It happened on February 10, 2001, during a performance of Eve Enslers Vagina Monologues, which was being acted out by sixty megastars in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. The show was a fundraiser for V-Day, the international organization that works to prevent violence toward women.

Ill never forget it.

All the celebrities, including Oprah, stood in a semicircle reciting their vignettes about womens sexual triumphs and tragedies from index cardsall the celebrities except Jane, who had memorized her piece and when it was her turn stepped out of the circle and gave a spellbinding rendition about what its like to watch ones grandchild emerge bloody and screaming from his mothers womb. By turns anxious, tender, and emotional, Jane ended the monologue with and I was there in the room. I remember.

The audience gave a loud cheer. At that point, Jane curtsied to a dark-haired young woman who was seated in the front row. It turned out the young woman was Janes daughter, Vanessa Vadim. Months before, Jane had assisted the midwife at the birth of Vanessas son, Malcolm. Jane was paying her homage.

Afterward there was a noisy party at the cavernous Hammerstein Ballroom. Jane was surrounded by so many admirers that I had to push my way through the crowd to congratulate her.

I did it! I did it! she exclaimed to me, eyes sparkling. She hadnt acted in thirteen years and she suffered from such God-awful stage fright I was petrified I wouldnt be able to get through it, she confided to me, but I did.

We gripped hands.

Jane and I have known each other since the 1960s. We were kids then, studying with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. I was an actress for ten years on Broadway before switching to journalism, while Jane was refashioning herself as Barbarella.

I wrote my first article about Jane in 1970 for McCalls magazine. She had just been nominated for an Academy Award for her searing performance as the suicidal marathon dancer in They Shoot Horses, Dont They? She went on to win Oscars for both Klute and Coming Home, movies that defined her political evolution.

For the next three decades I continued to write stories about her: when she was burned in effigy as Hanoi Jane, and a couple of years after, when the Gallup Poll listed her as one of the most admired women in the world along with Mother Teresa.

Jane polarizes, and the public remains fascinated by her. She has an extraordinary ability to reinvent herself in response to the times. Consider that she transformed herself from movie star to political activist to exercise guru to tycoon wife and now, in the twenty-first century, shes turning into an exemplary philanthropist. She doesnt generate, she reactsto people, places, and events; everything about the fast-paced, chaotic reality that is American life turns her on.

But then I realize that above all she is a consummate actress who has an uncanny ability to inhabit various characters at will. She once told me, The weird thing about acting is that you get paid for discovering you have multiple personalities. Jane can will herself into becoming whatever she wants to become. Which is why I wanted to write this book about her.

In 2000 I began researching. Jane had given the project her blessing, so I interviewed scores of her friends and colleagues. But Jane herself refused to speak to me. She said it was because she was writing her own memoir and didnt want to give anything away. Then in January 2003, she suddenly changed her mind and invited me to come to her ranch in New Mexico for a week. Im going over my FBI files and you can help me. I dont feel like doing it alone, she said. I agreed, and I wasnt surprised; Jane constantly changes her mind. Thats the way she isfull of contradictions.

I wasnt surprised either to receive the following e-mail from her a couple of days later:

Sat 18 Jan 2003
Subject: Gulp
From: Jane Fonda
To: Patricia Bosworth

Deep breath. Big gulp. Heres why: I have my own special personal stories about my life and I do have a big fear that I will give them away to you, because I do tend to let things just spill. YET, I do trust you and would like to spend time with you so here goes:

I do have all my FBI files like I said and you are welcome to go through them provided you share whats interesting (most isnt) with me. This is a good way to avoid having to do it myself in exchange for youre [sic] being there. Hows that? If its just us, its truly just us. I am not a cook and eat sparingly when left to my own devices.... Aside from that, when not writing I am engaged in heavy manual labor such as cutting down trees and clearing trail. You would be welcome to come along but not required to participate.

XXOO jane

Two months later I arrived at Janes 2,500-acre ranch outside Santa Fe. After she showed me around her comfortable, spacious home, we sat down in her vaulted living room, in front of a crackling fire, and drank red wine from oversize goblets. She told me how glad she was that I was writing her biography. There had already been nine published biographies of her, all written by menall of whom, she believed, felt threatened by her. Im glad a woman is writing about me, she said.

I began explaining why I wanted to write this book. Jane has fulfilled every female fantasy, achieving love, fame, money, and success on a grand scale. Shes a genuine American icon who wont be remembered for her movies but rather for her outsize serial lives.