June 12, 2023 | Rachel Ramlawi

Disobedient Facts About Jane Fonda, The Rebel Daughter


For a period in the 1970s, Jane Fonda was one of the most controversial stars in Hollywood. Today, she's a legend. The daughter of an acting dynasty, Fonda has been in the spotlight since birth. Since then, she's managed to strike out on her own and make herself a household name—for better or worse—in her own right. Here are 46 facts about Jane Fonda.


1. Silver Spoon

Jane is the daughter of legendary actor Henry Fonda and troubled socialite Frances Ford Brokaw. The jet-set pair had Jane on December 21, 1937 in New York City, just a few days shy of Christmas.

jane fonda

2. Bow Down

Fonda has a famous namesake: King Henry VIII's beloved and doomed wife Jane Seymour. Seymour is a distant ancestor of Fonda's mother.

Jane Fonda facts Wikipedia

3. Flying High

Fonda is unashamed of her naughty side: She's proudly admitted to being a member of the "Mile High Club".

Jane Fonda facts Pixabay

4. Quickie Wedding

As a young actress, Fonda had an extremely troubled love life. She was married no less than three times, with each union ending in divorce. Her first husband was famed director Roger Vadim—but though it lasted almost a decade on paper, she married her second husband, activist Tom Hayden, just three days after finalizing her first divorce. Talk about messy.

Jane Fonda facts Getty Images

5. Making Rank

In her early career, Fonda was infamous for her smokin' good looks in films like Barbarella. It paid off. In 1995, Empire magazine named Fonda one of the sexiest stars of all time; she came in at 21.

Jane Fonda facts Getty Images

6. Sibling Rivalry

The Fondas were truly an acting dynasty. Jane followed her father Henry's footsteps to Hollywood, but so did her baby brother Peter Fonda. The youngest Fonda gained his own fame for the revolutionary film Easy Rider.

Jane Fonda facts Getty Images

7. First Brush With Tragedy

Despite their reputation as the golden family of Hollywood, the Fondas hid a dark secret behind the scenes. Though she looked glamorous and perfect, Jane's mother Frances actually struggled mightily with her mental health. In 1950, she lost her battle and tragically took her own life while seeking treatment at Craig House psychiatric hospital.

Jane Fonda facts Pixabay

8. Cover Girl

Fonda was legendarily beautiful as a young girl. She was even a successful model before she was a household name in Hollywood, and appeared on the cover of Vogue twice before getting into acting.

Jane Fonda facts Getty Images

9. Daddy's Little Girl

Fonda adored her dad, but his love was often cruel. Henry was a strict and distant 1950s father, and he even wanted to control how his daughter looked. As Jane later confessed, "I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly. He was a good man, and I was mad for him, but he sent messages to me that fathers should not send: Unless you look perfect, you're not going to be loved".

Jane Fonda facts Getty Images

10. College Drop-out

She attended Vassar College briefly, but dropped out to fly to Paris and study art for six months instead. Now that's what I call a study abroad opportunity.

Jane Fonda facts Shutterstock

11. In High Demand

Fonda worked hard for her money. Starting in 1960, the burgeoning starlet averaged two movies a year for the next 10 years of her career.

Jane Fonda facts Shutterstock

12. Blessed Are the Poor

Fonda's marriage to Tom Hayden was desperately unhappy. Obsessive and controlling, Hayden was deeply uncomfortable when Fonda showed any signs of her wealth, and the couple lived in a very modest house together. Reportedly, Hayden even got sick of the sight of Fonda's expensive Cartier watch, so she had to change it to a Timex. What would you know? They divorced in 1990.

Robert Redford factsShutterstock

13. Bad Girl

In 1970, Fonda started getting a bad reputation, particularly after one explosive incident at the Cleveland airport. After finding a whopping 105 bottles in her luggage that contained roughly 2,000 pills, authorities apprehended the starlet. Then things got even worse. Fonda reacted to the arrest by allegedly kicking both a patrolman and a customs agent.

Teacher Confiscated FactsShutterstock

14. Can't Touch This

But appearances can be deceiving. The government actually dropped the charges on Fonda after learning the real story. For one, the pills were vitamins and legitimate prescriptions. As for the assault charges? Police dropped them too after they discovered that the customs agent had chased Fonda into the women’s restroom.

Jane Fonda facts Getty Images

15. Food for Thought

Fonda's life in the spotlight had devastating consequences. She started modelling in her vulnerable teenage years and picked up some bad habits along the way. She's since confessed that during that time, she started suffering from an eating disorder—bulimia more specifically—that followed her well into her 30s.

As a young woman, she says she mostly survived on coffee, smokes, and strawberry yogurt.

Jane Fonda facts Shutterstock

16. And the Oscar Goes to...

In 1982, Jane's father Henry won his only Academy Award for Best Actor for  On Golden Pond; father and daughter had starred in the film together. However, by the time the Oscars rolled around, the elder Fonda was ill on his deathbed and couldn't come to accept his award, so Jane went up to take it in his stead.

She said wryly on stage, "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".

Alfred Hitchcock factsLibreShot

17. Je Ne Sais Quois

Those six months in Paris did Fonda good: She's fluent in French.

Jane Fonda factsShutterstock

18. The Acting Bug

Fonda had always nursed a dream of acting, particularly as she grew up watching her father perfect the craft. However, she was too insecure about her talents to consider it a real option—until she met director Lee Strasberg. Strasberg saw something in her, and according to Fonda, the meeting changed her life forever. 

As she said, "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".

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

Strasberg, first form left 

19. Fonda Got Back

Jane Fonda gets a shout-out in Sir Mix-A-Lot’s one hit wonder "Baby Got Back," but it's not exactly flattering. Though Fonda's exercise videos became famous, Mix-a-Lot apparently isn't a fan. As he sings in the song, "So your girlfriend rolls a Honda / Playin' workout tapes by Fonda / But Fonda ain't got a motor in the back of her Honda".

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

20. Acting out

The 1970s were a decade of controversy for the actress. A lifelong supporter of civil rights, Fonda was a prominent and loud protestor of the Vietnam War, and even traveled to North Vietnam in 1972. For a time, her political beliefs got her all but blacklisted from Hollywood productions—and the US government even put her under surveillance.

Jane Fonda factsWikimedia Commons

21. Work It

In 1982, Fonda released her first at-home aerobics video, Jane Fonda's Workout. It was a total sensation—in fact, it became the best-selling VHS in history.

Jane Fonda factsFlickr, mike krzeszak

22. A Royal Visit

The set of On Golden Pond was a star-studded event, and not just because both Jane and her father Henry were there. According to Fonda, Michael Jackson also visited the set—and went skinny dipping wth her.

Martin Scorsese factsGetty Images

23. If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

The US army has long held a grudge against Fonda for her actions in Vietnam. In 2005, a Navy veteran even spat nicotine chew at her during a book signing, saying that he considered the act "a debt of honor. 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, for her part, refused to press charges.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

24. Musically Gifted

Life is good when your father is a famous actor. When little Jane Fonda wanted to learn how to play the guitar, she didn't have to settle for any old music teacher. Legendary rock star David Crosby, most notably of The Byrds as well as super group Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, taught the girl how to play guitar.

Jane Fonda factsShutterstock

25. Golden Girl

Fonda has two Academy Awards for Best Actress: she won for the detective thriller Klute and then for the drama Coming Home.

Jane Fonda factsFlickr, Alan Light

26. Looking for Love in the Wrong Places

The death of Fonda's mother Frances had an enormous impact on Jane well into her adult life. According to the actress, she was often desperate for attention and validation from men, particularly "alpha males," all the way up until she was 62 years old. Fonda traces these insecurities back to not having a positive female role model growing up.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

27. Can't Please Everyone

When Fonda burst onto the scene in the early 1960s, people went wild for her. One publication called her "the loveliest and most gifted of all our new young actresses"—but some reviews were a lot meaner. The same year as this praise came out, the Harvard Lampoon also gave her a dubious honor by naming her "The Year's Worst Actress".

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

28. Siblings Stick Together

Although Jane and her brother Peter had a complicated relationship with their father, they were utterly devoted and loyal to each other. Even when Jane was under immense heat for her political activism, her baby brother always stood up for her. He was even once arrested for defacing a public poster that read "Feed Jane Fonda to the Whales".

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

29. Working on My Night Moves

Fonda really was no stranger to scandal: She played an escort both in her Academy Award-winning role in Klute as well as her 1962 film Walk on the Wild Side. She had a good humor about these parts, and once quipped about her type casting, "Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution".

Jane Fonda factsKlute (1971), Warner Bros

30. Clever Girl

At the height of her career, Fonda was a critics' actress if there ever was one. Heavy hitters like Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, and Jonathan Rosenbaum were all head over heels for her nervy, intelligent acting style. As Kael once put it, "As an actress, [Fonda] has a special kind of smartness that takes the form of speed; she's always a little ahead of everybody".

Oprah Winfrey factsGetty Images

31. Shag-a-delic, Baby

Fonda's role in the film Klute was so popular at the time, her short hairstyle in the movie even started a trend called "the Klute shag".

Jane Fonda factsFlickr, Tommy Truong79

32. Like Father, Like Daughter

In 1982, Henry and Jane Fonda became the first father-daughter pair ever nominated for individual Oscars in the same year; they were both up for their work in On Golden Pond. Even better, to this day they're the only father and daughter to have both won Oscars for a leading role category. Talk about an acting dynasty!

Jane Fonda factsOn Golden Pond (1981), Universal Pictures

33. Second Choice and Second Rate

Chinatown is one of the classic Hollywood film noirs, and the producers desperately wanted Fonda to play the lead role of Evelyn Mulwray—except Fonda shocked them all by turning it down. Left with their hands empty, producers ended up giving the part to the infamously temperamental actress Faye Dunaway, all for the insultingly low price of $50,000.

Faye Dunaway FactsGetty Images

34. Lost Loves

With a face like that and a Hollywood history spanning back decades, it's no wonder Fonda has had some steamy celebrity relationships. Among her most famous rumored beaus are Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and Tinseltown lothario Warren Beatty.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

35. Hard Labor

Fonda has three children, but her first pregnancy with her daughter Vanessa Vadim was the most harrowing. Doctors had to deliver the little girl with forceps, and the whole process was so disturbing for Fonda that she slipped into a violent postpartum depression after the birth. Her depression got so bad, she was only able to breastfeed her baby for three weeks.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

36. Losing out

When renowned director Elia Kazan was casting for his upcoming film Splendor in the Grass, Fonda was one of his top choices—but the young actress made a huge mistake. Kazan asked her if she was ambitious, and Fonda responded "no," thinking to herself that "Good girls aren't supposed to be ambitious". Kazan went with Natalie Wood instead, and to this day, Fonda believes she would have gotten the part if she said yes.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

37. Going Incognito

People are so used to Fonda's glamour-puss image, she claims that if she walks around in public without wearing any makeup, no one recognizes her.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

38. Passion Play

Actor Warren Beatty has a particularly saucy memory of doing a kissing screen-test with Fonda for the film Parrish. As he retells it, "We were thrown together like lions in a cage and told to kiss. Oh my God! We kissed until we had practically eaten each other's heads off". Jane? Doesn't even remember this screen-test at all, and neither actor got the part.

Edie Sedgwick FactsGetty Images

39. Facing Facts

When Fonda was just starting out, insiders told her to go through drastic measures to change her looks. And I do mean drastic: They recommended that she surgically break her jaw and reset it, as well as pull out her back teeth, all to create a gaunter look. Thankfully, Fonda declined to take this stellar advice.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

40. The Bare Truth

Today, Fonda is famous—among other things—for her willingness to bare it all, even in her advanced age. Few people remember, though, that she's been doing this forever. In 1964's La Ronde, she became one of the first major American actresses to appear undressed in a foreign film; Italy even charged her with obscenity for the role.

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

41. By the Numbers

Fonda is one smart cookie: She has a confirmed IQ of 132, which experts generally consider the top tier.

Criminal Minds FactsShutterstock

42. Legends Only

There's a particularly juicy urban legend about Fonda during her Vassar years. According to the story, the uppity college had regular afternoon tea at the Rose Parlor for all the elegant young ladies. Well, the rebellious Fonda absolutely refused to adhere to the dress code of "gloves and pearls". When the school confronted her about it, she came up with an ingenious plot. 

She "surrendered" and showed up to the parlor in the required pearls and gloves—except she wasn't wearing anything else.

Jane Fonda facts Shutterstock

43. Family Secrets

When Fonda's mother Frances died, it was tragedy enough—but the family's reaction was even more heartbreaking. They tried to cover up the true circumstances of her passing, and told Jane and her brother Peter that their mother had passed on from heart failure instead. To ensure the secret was airtight, Jane's father even canceled their magazine subscriptions and hushed up the high school staff.

Jane Fonda facts Shutterstock

44. A Little Light Reading

Fonda didn’t know the truth of what had happened to her mother until much later; she only found it out while reading a movie magazine during study hall in school.

Jane Fonda facts Shutterstock

45. Hanoi Jane

Fonda's 1972 visit to Vietnam incited an enormous scandal after a photograph emerged of her sitting on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. The American people were immediately vengeful and snidely called her "Hanoi Jane"—but Fonda says that's not the whole story. She admits that the photograph is her one big regret, but claims the Vietnamese may have coerced her into taking the photo.

According to her recollection, she was listening to a song when the Vietnamese led her to the gun, sat her down, and took her picture before she knew what was happening. As she said, "It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know...If I was used, I allowed it to happen...a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever".

Jane Fonda factsFlickr, manhhai

46. Mid-Sized Fun

In his 1986 autobiography, John Phillips of the rock group The Mamas and the Papas made a truly shocking confession. Phillips claims that he went over to Fonda's house and got up to some pretty steamy stuff. According to the rock god, he, his wife Michelle, Fonda, her husband, and Warren Beatty engaged in a "mid-sized" bedroom romp together.

I have one question: Why is Warren Beatty always in these stories??

Jane Fonda factsGetty Images

The Mamas and the Papas 

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8


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