Jane’s epiphany REDISCOVERING MYSELF AT
THE SCREEN ICON REVEALS WHAT SHE’S LEARNED ABOUT LOVE AND LIFE
Many Hollywood actresses of a certain age don’t like to be reminded of how old they are and make it clear the subject of their advanced years is taboo.
Jane Fonda is not one of them. The Oscar-winning actress is about to turn 80 and is quite happy to talk about it.
“I’m so excited,” says the star of sitcom Grace and Frankie. “I never thought I’d live this long, much less still be working at this age. If you’re 20 and you don’t know how you’re going to live past 30, when you realise that you’re going to be 80, it’s like a miracle.”
Jane kicked off celebrations for her birthday on December 21 with a fundraising dinner that raised $1.8m for a charity she set up to help prevent teen pregnancy. It included an eight-course meal – one for every decade of her life. The worst part of reaching her ninth decade, she says, is that “I can’t lift as many weights as I used to.” The best is that “people don’t grope you”.
Jane, who has spoken out about the “epidemic” of sexual harassment in many walks of life in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and is a critic of US president Donald Trump, says the world is not quite the place she imagined it would be when she turned 80.
The longtime activist, who has campaigned over the years for feminist, environmental and anti-war causes, says, “I thought we would have a woman president. I thought I could maybe take up gardening – I didn’t think I would be back on the barricades. I didn’t think our freedoms, our democracy, would be in jeopardy the way they are now. I am terrified.”
But life is not all doom and gloom. Although her eightyear relationship with music producer Richard Perry ended earlier this year, she’s not upset.
“I’m single, which makes me very happy,” she says. And still being in demand for her acting abilities is a huge bonus. As well as starring in the Netflix TV series Grace and Frankie with her 9 to 5 co-star Lily Tomlin, she has recently appeared in her fourth movie with Robert Redford. Called Our Souls at Night, it follows an elderly couple who find romance and includes a love scene she complained about – for an unusual reason.
“I’m unhappy with it because it was so short,” explains Jane.
Although the actress started acting at 17, appearing in a play with her dad Henry Fonda, there are times today when she feels like “I’m just starting out.” Re-launching her career in her mid-sixties helped to give her a new lease of life. Jane had walked away from acting in
1990 after having an epiphany in a hotel room.
“I was really unhappy. I thought, ‘I can’t keep doing this.’ I can’t act if I’m miserable and so I thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to stop.’ I bought some property in New Mexico and I was going to become a full-time environmental activist.
And then Ted
Turner came into my life. People think I gave up acting because of him. The fact is that I was on the way out.”
Her marriage to the billionaire businessman, who founded CNN, ended after 10 years and Jane – who’d been married twice before – spent the next five years writing a memoir, My Life So Far. Then, in 2005, she was asked to appear in the Jennifer Lopez movie Monsterin-Law. “Even though it was a ‘popcorn’ movie, it was transformative for me. It was the only strategic career thing I ever did. I thought, ‘Hmm, people will come to see J.Lo and they will rediscover me,’ which is absolutely what happened.”
The former aerobics queen has worked steadily ever since. She admits cosmetic surgery has helped her to hold back
the years. “I wish I were brave enough to not do plastic surgery, but I think I bought myself a decade,” says Jane, who had work done to her jawline and under her eyes when she was 72.
But she also takes good care of herself and tries not to panic about her advancing years. “Looking at age from the outside is so scary. But when you’re inside age, it isn’t scary at all. It is important to figure out what you need to do for yourself every day to decompress. I meditate. And I always get eight hours sleep.”
And while she does have some regrets, she understands they are part of the process of life.“There are certain things I wish I had or hadn’t done, but they made me who I am. What makes you is your mistakes, not your successes.”