The Hollywood rebel who made

Peter Fonda wasn’t born to be wild. The son of Hollywood royalty, with the same penetrating blue eyes and robust jawline as his father, Henry, Peter seemed destined for a career playing cleancut romantic leads and all-American heroes. Then the 1960s arrived, and he started growing his hair long and smoking pot and dropping acid. Rejecting the warnings of cautious studio executives, Fonda teamed up with Dennis Hopper to co-write and produce 1969’s Easy Rider, about a drug-fueled motorcycle odyssey across the Deep South. The movie earned

$60 million at the box office and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and kickstarted the independent-film movement of the 1970s. Fonda’s character, nicknamed “Captain America” for his star-spangled helmet, became an icon of the counterculture generation. “It was a market that had never been played to,” Fonda said. “Nobody had sung their song to them.” Born in Manhattan, Fonda was 10 years old when his mother, “an emotionally fragile socialite,” committed suicide, said The Washington Post. Henry, a cold and distant father, told Peter and his sister Jane that their mom had died of a heart attack; they didn’t learn the truth until years later. At age 11, Fonda accidentally shot himself in the stomach with a pistol. He later told the story to John Lennon, inspiring the line “I know what it’s like to be dead” from the Beatles’ “She Said She Said.” Fonda began his acting career “the old-fashioned way, in regional theater,” said The New York Times. After a stint at the Omaha Community Playhouse in Nebraska and a string of forgettable films, he found “his true persona” while starring in edgy, low-budget pictures. In 1967’s The Trip, he played a TV commercial director who takes acid for the first time.

His father was appalled at his son’s hippie antics, “and a long estrangement followed,” said The Times (U.K.). Meanwhile, many Hollywood executives viewed Easy Rider’s creator as a dangerous upstart, and his acting career stalled. Decades later, he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for 1997’s Ulee’s Gold, playing a Vietnam vet turned beekeeper who finds himself raising his grandchildren. The film led to a late career revival, although Fonda considered himself an outsider to the end. “It was when I came into the counterculture that I came into my stride,” he said. “You get in that stride, and you can lock yourself in for that long-distance run.”