Jane fulfilling her potential at 80
In a revealing film about her life, the actress tells how she shed her insecurities to become a ‘late bloomer’
Of all the notables one might expect to open a documentary about Jane Fonda — actress, activist, fitness icon, Hollywood royalty and, now, inspiringly in-demand octogenarian — Richard Nixon probably wouldn’t feature high on the list. “What in the world is the matter with Jane Fonda?” the then-president’s voice is heard asking, on a White House tape from 1971, as Fonda was busy recasting herself in the role of anti-Vietnam War protester. “I feel so sorry for Henry Fonda, who’s a nice man. She’s a great actress. She looks pretty. But boy, she’s often on the wrong track.”
But Nixon’s unexpected appearance and dismissive, chauvinistic comments set the tone for Jane Fonda in Five Acts, made by HBO and written and directed by Susan Lacy. “You know, right away, that this is not a film about a movie star,” says the subject herself. “This is going to be different.”
Fonda and I meet in a hotel room in Beverly Hills, a large glass coffee table and a plate of biscuits between us. In her splashy-print top, with her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, it is almost impossible to accept that she is 80 years old. She is rail-thin and wrinkle-free, though without the terrifyingly frozen look of devotees of the surgeon’s knife. But, quite aside from her looks, it’s her energy that is tangibly youthful — she is passionate, vigorous, laser-sharp.
We are well used to Fonda as the mistress of reinvention. From sex symbol Fonda in the Barbarella
years, to serious actress Fonda, the double Oscar-winner (for Klute and
Coming Home) to activist Fonda in the 70s, workout Fonda in the 80s, and philanthropist Fonda in the 90s.
The documentary’s structure, however, slices things up differently, with each of the first four of the five “acts” named after the significant men in her life: her father, Henry, followed by her three husbands, French director Roger Vadim (“as soon as he walked in, I felt unsafe,” she says of their first meeting. “He felt predatory”), political activist Tom Hayden, and media mogul Ted Turner. The narrative device is that Fonda defined herself almost entirely by the men in her life, all of whom sought to control her. Until, that is, her fifth act, fittingly titled Jane.
“I didn’t have very much confidence, I didn’t take myself seriously, and I thought that if I was with those kinds of men that I could be somebody,” she tells me, thoughtfully. “They were all so brilliant, and I thought they could teach me things and take me farther than I had ever gone.
“I think I’m maybe just starting now to live up to my potential,” she adds. “I’m a late bloomer, but you know, we live 34 years longer than we used to, so it’s not so bad being a late bloomer.”
Late bloomer might be an exaggeration, but Fonda is certainly demonstrating admirable longevity. Alongside Grace and
Frankie, her Netflix comedy co-starring Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, now into its fourth successful series, she stars in one of this year’s hit films, Book Club, alongside Diane Keaton and Mary Steenburgen.
“Older women are the fastest-growing demographic in the world. And movies and television, it’s a business,” she says, matter-of-factly.
For the revealing, sometimes raw documentary was filmed over a total of 21 hours and features contributions from her son, Troy Garity, and her adopted daughter, Mary “Lulu” Williams, her close friends Tomlin and Robert Redford, plus two of her ex-husbands, Hayden (who died in 2016) and Turner. Vadim, who is labelled a charismatic, compulsive gambler and alcoholic in the film, declined to take part. While it is a 360-degree portrait of a cultural icon, it does not focus on her achievements or successes, but instead devotes much of the almost twoand-a-half hours to Fonda’s own reflections on her vulnerabilities.
She was, she says today, surprised by the response — from men as well as women — to her 2005 autobiography My Life So Far. “A lot of people identify with the various struggles that I’ve had,” she says. “Issues with parents, issues with eating disorders, issues with men, issues with self-confidence. And so I felt that, if these things could be brought to a broader audience, that it could be informative and helpful to other people.”