Actor Peter Fonda dead at 79
The son of a Hollywood legend wrote and starred in the counterculture classic “Easy Rider.”
LOS ANGELES — Actor Peter Fonda, the son of a Hollywood legend who became a movie star in his own right after both writing and starring in the counterculture classic “Easy Rider,” died Friday. His family said in a statement that Fonda died at his home in Los Angeles.
He was 79.
The official cause of death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer.
“In one of the saddest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts,” the family said in a statement. “As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy.”
Born into Hollywood royalty as Henry Fonda’s only son, Peter Fonda carved his own path with his non-conformist tendencies and earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing the psychedelic road trip movie “Easy Rider.”
He would never win that golden statuette, but would later be nominated for his leading performance as a Vietnam veteran and widowed beekeeper in “Ulee’s Gold.”
Fonda was born in New York in 1940 to parents whose personas were the opposite of the rebellious images their kids would cultivate. Henry Fonda was already a Hollywood giant, known for playing straightshooting cowboys and soldiers. His mother, Frances Ford Seymour, was a Canadian-born U.S. socialite.
He was only 10 years old when his mother died. She had a nervous breakdown after learning of her husband’s affair and was confined to a hospital. In 1950 she killed herself, slashing her throat with a razor. It would be about five years before Peter Fonda learned the truth behind her death.
Fonda accidentally shot himself and nearly died on his 11th birthday. It was a story he told often, including during an acid trip with members of The Beatles and The Byrds during which Fonda reportedly said, “I know what it’s like to be dead.”
John Lennon would use the line in the Beatles song “She Said She Said.”
Fonda went to private schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut as a child, moving on to the University of Nebraska in his father’s home state, joining the same acting group — the Omaha Community Playhouse — where Henry Fonda got his start. He then returned to New York and joined the Cecilwood Theatre, getting small roles on Broadway and guest parts on television shows including “Naked City” and “Wagon Train.”
Fonda and his father were estranged throughout most of the younger man’s life, but said that they grew closer over the years before Henry Fonda died in 1982.
Although Peter never achieved the status of his father or even his older sister, Jane Fonda, the impact of “Easy Rider,” which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, was enough to cement his place in popular culture.
Fonda collaborated with a young Dennis Hopper, on the script about two weedsmoking, drug-slinging bikers on a trip through the Southwest as they made their way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
On the way, Fonda and Hopper befriend a drunken young lawyer — Jack Nicholson in a breakout role — but raise the dander of Southern rednecks and are murdered before they can return home.
Fonda’s character Wyatt wore a stars-and-stripes helmet and rode a motorcycle called “Captain America,” re-purposing traditional images for the counterculture.
Actress Illeana Douglas tweeted her condolences Friday with the hashtag “RIPCaptainAmerica.”
“‘Easy Rider’ depicted the rise of hippie culture, condemned the establishment, and celebrated freedom,” Douglas wrote. “Peter Fonda embodied those values and instilled them in a generation.”
Fonda produced “Easy Rider” and Hopper directed it.