‘Easy Rider’ put Fonda on road to success

LOS ANGELES — Peter Fonda, the son of a Hollywood legend who became a movie star in his own right by both writing and starring in counterculture classics like “Easy Rider,” died Friday morning at his home in Los Angeles, his family said. He was 79.

The official cause of death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer.

“We are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts,” his family said in a statement. “And, while we mourn the loss of this sweet and gracious man, we also wish for all to celebrate his indomitable spirit and love of life.”

“He was my sweethearted baby brother,” his sister, actress Jane Fonda, said in a statement. “I have had beautiful alone time with him these last days. He went out laughing.”

Born into Hollywood royalty as Henry Fonda’s only son, Peter Fonda carved his own path with his nonconformist tendencies and earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing the psychedelic road trip movie “Easy Rider.” He would never win that golden statuette, but he would later be nominated for his leading performance as a Vietnam veteran and widowed beekeeper in the 1997 film “Ulee’s Gold.”

Fonda was born in New York and was only 10 years old when his mother, Frances Ford Seymour, died. Fonda had an estranged relationship with his father Fonda but said they grew closer over the years before Henry Fonda died in 1982.

Although Peter never achieved the status of his father or Jane, the impact of “Easy Rider,” which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, was enough to cement his place in popular culture.

Fonda collaborated with another struggling young actor, Dennis Hopper, on the script about two weedsmoking, drug-slinging bikers on a trip through the Southwest and Deep South.

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,” repurposing traditional images for the counter-culture.

Fonda produced “Easy Rider” and Hopper directed it for a meager $380,000. It went on to gross $40 million worldwide.

The film was a hit at Cannes, netted a best-screenplay Oscar nomination for Fonda, Hopper and Terry Southern, and has since been listed on the American Film Institute’s ranking of the top 100 American films.

In 1969, Fonda told The Associated Press that, “As for my generation, it was time they started doing their own speaking.”

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 got small roles on Broadway and guest parts on television shows including “Naked City” and “Wagon Train.” He then went to Hollywood, where his film debut was “Tammy and the Doctor” in 1963.

After “Ulee’s Gold,” he remained prolific, with notable performances as the heel in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Limey,” from 1999, and in James Mangold’s 2007 update of “3:10 to Yuma.”

Fonda is survived by his third wife, Margaret Devogelaere, his daughter, actress Bridget Fonda, and a son, Justin, both from his first marriage to Susan Brewer.