Henry Fonda

At 77 years old, Henry Fonda has this physical status:

Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor with a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood.

Fonda produced a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered classics, winning one Academy Award for Best Actor on two nominations.

Fonda made his Broadway debut early and made his Hollywood debut in 1935.

His film career began to grow in importance with roles as Bette Davis' fiancee in Jezebel (1938), brother Frank in Jesse James (1939), and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), directed by John Ford.

Tom Joad, an Oklahoma family who immigrated to California during the Dust Bowl 1930s, brought his early career to a conclusion.

This film is often thought of as one of the best American films. In 1941, he appeared alongside Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, a screwball comedy masterpiece.

He served in WWII and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter's directed by John Ford, and he appeared in Ford's western Fort Apache (1948).

He returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955), after a seven-year absence from films, during which Fonda concentrated on stage performances.

In 12 Angry Men, a critical success and now regarded as a seminal film, he appeared as Juror No. 8, the hold-out juror.

Fonda, who also co-producer, was named Best Foreign Actor by the British Academy of Actors in the BAFTA. Fonda went on to darker roles, including as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), underrated and a box office disappointment at the time of its unveiling, but it is now considered one of the finest westerns of all time.

He appeared in lighter-hearted farewells such as Yours, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball, but he also appeared in important military roles, such as Colonel Robert Beyer (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976).

He finally received the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his last film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but he was unable to attend the awards ceremony because he was too ill to attend.

He died of heart disease a few months later. Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity.

He was dubbed "Hank" by his family and close friends.

The American Film Institute named him as the sixth-Greatest Male Screen Legend of the Classic Hollywood Era in 1999 (stars with a film debut by 1950).

Family history and early life

Henry Jaynes Fonda, born in Grand Island, Nebraska, on May 16, 1905, was the uncle of printer William Brace Fonda and his partner, Herberta (Jaynes). In 1906, the family immigrated to Omaha, Nebraska.

Fonda's patriline derives from an ancestor from Genoa, Italy, who immigrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century. On the East Coast of North America, a Fonda branch immigrated to New Netherland, the Dutch colony of 1642. They were among the first Dutch people to settle in what is now upstate New York, founding Fonda, New York. Many of their descendants had immigrated to Nebraska by 1888, according to historians.

Fonda was born a Christian Scientist but he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Grand Island. They were a close family and extremely helpful, especially in health issues, since they avoided doctors due to their faith. Despite his religious upbringing, he became an agnostic later in life. Fonda, a short boy who liked girls except his sisters, was a good skater, swimmer, and runner. He worked part-time at his father's print shop and considered a career as a journalist. He went back to school after school for the phone company later. He loved drawing as well. Fonda was a member of the Boy Scouts of America; Teichmann claims he attained the rank of Eagle Scout. This is, in contrast, denied elsewhere. During the 1919 Omaha race riot, Will Brown and his father witnessed the lynching of Will Brown from a nearby building. This enraged the young Fonda, who maintained a keen suspicion of prejudice for the remainder of his life. "It was the most horrific sight I'd ever seen," he said in a 1975 BBC interview. My hands were swollen and tears welled up in my eyes. All I could remember was the young black man dangling at the end of a rope." Fonda had grown to more than six foot (1.8 meters) tall by his senior year in high school, but remained timid. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism but did not graduate. He was a member of Chi Delta Xi, a local fraternity that later became Chi Phi's Gamma Delta chapter on that campus while living in Minnesota. He worked for the Retail Credit Company.

Personal life

Fonda was married five times and had three children, one of whom was adopted. He married Margaret Sullavan in 1931, but they were separated in 1931, which was finalized in a 1933 divorce. Fonda dated actress Shirley Ross in 1935, and by year's end, it had been widely reported — among others, then-syndicated columnist Ed Sullivan — that the couple was engaged, with wedding plans afoot. Despite these publications, both sides had apparently reformed, and it was announced in January 1936 that Fonda was now seen actress Virginia Bruce.

Fonda married Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw, widow of a wealthy industrialist, George Tuttle Brokaw, later this year. The Brokaws had a daughter who had been born shortly after the Brokaws' marriage in 1931.

On the set of Wings of the Morning, Fonda met his future wife Frances, the first picture in Europe to be shot in three-strip Technicolor. Jane (b. ) and her husband had two children. (1937) and Peter (1940–2019), both of whom went on to be highly successful actors. Jane has received two Best Actress Academy Awards, and Peter was nominated for two, one for Best Actor.

Fonda announced in August 1949 that he wanted a divorce so he could remarry; their 13 years of marriage had not been happy ones for him. Frances went into the Austen Riggs Psychiatric Hospital in January 1950 for therapy, after being devastated by Fonda's confession and plagued by emotional difficulties for many years. On April 14, she committed suicide there. She had sent six notes to several people before her death but left no final message for her husband. Fonda arranged a private funeral for only himself and his mother-in-law, Sophie Seymour. Henry Fonda was described by Dr. Margaret Gibson, the psychiatrist who had seen Frances at Austen Riggs, as "a cold, self-absorbed individual, a complete narcissist."

Fonda married Susan Blanchard, his mistress, in 1950. She was 21 years old, the niece of Oscar Hammerstein II, and the niece of Australian-born interior designer Dorothy Hammerstein. Amy Fishman (born 1953) and her husband, Amy Fishman (born 1953). They divorced three years ago. Blanchard was in awe of Fonda, and she referred to her role as "a geisha" in the wedding, doing everything she could to please him, dealing with and solving problems he didn't recognize.

Fonda married Italian Baroness Afdera Franchetti in 1957. In 1961, the two married in 1961. Fonda married Shirlee Mae Adams (born in 1932) shortly after, and she remained with her until his death in 1982.

Fonda's relationship with his children has been described as "ethical." Fonda loathing displays of feeling in himself or others, and this was a regular part of his personality. Whenever he felt that his emotional wall was being breached, he had outbursts of rage, demonstrating a ferocious temper that terrified his family. Don't Tell Dad, Peter Fonda's 1998 autobiography, he recalled how he was never sure how his dad felt about him. He never told his father that he loved him until he was elderly, and Peter finally heard, "I love you, son." Jane Stewart sluggishly rejected her father's friendships with Republican artists like John Wayne and James Stewart. Jane Fonda's relationship became strained as she became a left-wing activist.

Jane Fonda grew up with her father, particularly during her early acting days. When visiting her father at Malibu in 1958, she met Lee Strasberg. Susan, the Fonda and Strasberg families, were neighbors, and she and Strasberg's daughter Susan shared a common interest. Jane Fonda began studying acting with Strasberg, discovering the secrets of "The Method" by which Strasberg was a well-known proponent. This was a turning point in her career. Jane Fonda learned her craft as an actress, she became dissatisfied with her father's natural abilities, which, to her, appeared to be a demonstration of effortlessness.

Fonda was a ardent supporter of the Democratic Party and a "inspiration" of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fonda debuted in a campaign commercial for presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960. The ad focused on Kennedy's naval service during World War II, specifically the infamous PT-109 attack. In the 1964 United States presidential election, Lyndon B. Johnson was endorsed by him. He started as a registered Republican but later switched to Democratic politics.

While writing an article about Jane Fonda for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1960s, writer Al Aronowitz approached Henry Fonda about method acting: "I can't articulate about it because I never read about it." I don't mean to say that I have any thoughts or opinions about it...I have no idea what the procedure is and I don't care what the spelling is. Everybody has a plan. Everybody can't articulate about their approach, and I can't if I have one, and Jane often says that I use the Method, i.e. the capital letter Method, without being aware of it. I'm sure I do; it doesn't matter."

"My father can't articulate the way he works," Aronowitz wrote to Jane. He just can't do it. He's not even aware of what he does, and it made him anxious for me to try to explain what I was trying to say. And I suspected it right away, so we didn't spend much time discussing it...he said, 'Shut up, I don't want to hear about it.' You know, he didn't want me to tell him about it. He wanted to make fun of it."

Source

Career

Fonda began his acting career at the Omaha Community Playhouse when his mother's friend, Dodie Brando (mother of Marlon Brando), suggested that he audition for a youth role in You and I, in which he was portrayed as Ricky. He was captivated by the stage, from setting up to stage design, and being embarrassed by his acting skills. When he was given the lead in Merton of the Movies, he realized the benefits of acting as a profession, allowing him to deflect attention from his own tongue-tied appearance and create stage characters relying on someone else's scripted words. Fonda decided to leave his career and go east in 1928 to seek his fortune.

He landed on Cape Cod and played a small part in Dennis, Massachusetts, at the Cape Playhouse. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA, where he joined and quickly became a long-serving member of the University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock corporation. Margaret Sullavan, his future wife, was a student at the University of On the Isle of Shepardy. Just a few months after Fonda left, James Stewart joined the Players, but they soon became lifelong friends. Fonda departed the Players at the end of the 1931–1932 season after Sem Benelli played in his first professional role in The Jest. Fonda was given the role of Tornaquinci, "an elderly Italian man with long white beard and even longer hair," by Joshua Logan, a young sophomore at Princeton who had been double-cast on the program. Bretaigne Windust, Kent Smith, and Eleanor Phelps were among the cast members of The Jest with Fonda and Logan.

Fonda and his then-wife, Margaret Sullavan, arrived in New York City soon after. The marriage was brief, but when James Stewart returned to New York, his fortune was turned upside down. As long as they didn't discuss politics, they had a lot in common when getting contact details from Joshua Logan, "Jimmy" and "Hank." The two guys became roommates and honed their Broadway skills. Fonda appeared in stage productions from 1926 to 1934. They fared no better than many Americans in and out of work during the Great Depression's early years, with some Americans not having enough funds to ride the subway.

Fonda got his first break in film when he was recruited in 1935 as Janet Gaynor's leading man in Fox's film adaptation of The Farmer Takes a Wife; he reprised his role from the Broadway version of the same name, which had earned him fame. Fonda was making $3,000 a week and dining with Hollywood celebrities like Carole Lombard. Stewart and Stephen arrived in Hollywood shortly after and they stayed together in apartments next door to Greta Garbo. Fonda appeared in the RKO film I Dream Too Much with opera actress Lily Pons in 1935. "Henry Fonda, the most likable of the new crop of romantic teenagers," the New York Times introduced him. Fonda's film career flourished as he costarred with Sylvia Sidney and Fred MacMurray in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the first Technicolor film shot outdoors, and the first Technicolor film shot outside.

He starred with ex-wife Margaret Sullavan in The Moon's Our Home, and a brief rekindling of their friendship culminated in the brief but temporary consideration of remarriage. Fonda received the nod for the lead role in You Only Live Once (1937), costarring Sidney and directed by Fritz Lang. In the film Jezebel (1938), he starred opposite Bette Davis, who had chosen him. This was followed by the title role in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), his first film with director John Ford, and the year he played Frank James (1939) starring Tyrone Power and Nancy Kelly. Drums Along the Mohawk, a 1939 film that Ford also produced, was also directed by Ford.

Fonda's success prompted Ford to recruit Tom Joad to act in the film version of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Fonda's signing of a seven-year deal with his company, Twentieth Century-Fox, was a reluctant Darryl Zanuck, who wished Tyrone Power. Fonda accepted and was eventually nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film, which many consider to be his finest work. Fonda appeared in Fritz Lang's The Return of Frank James (1940) with Gene Tierney. He appeared in Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve (1941) and then teamed with Tierney in the smashing screwball comedy Rings on Her Fingers (1942). She was one of Fonda's most popular co-stars, and together they appeared in three films. He was praised for his participation in the 1943 earthquake of The Ox-Bow Incident.

Fonda, who was stationed in the US Navy to combat in World War II, has said, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio." Stewart and he had previously raised funds for Britain's defense. Fonda served for three years, first as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was given the Bronze Star Medal and Navy Presidential Unit Citation. Fonda was transferred to the Naval Reserve in 1950, serving three years (1945-1948). Fonda was barred from active service due to a "overage in rank."

Fonda took a break from movies and attended Hollywood parties and enjoyed civilian life after the war. Stewart and Fonda will watch records and select Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Dinah Shore, and Nat King Cole over for music, with the latter giving the family piano lessons. In My Darling Clementine (1946), directed by John Ford, Fonda played Wyatt Earp. Fonda made seven war films before his Fox deal came to an end, the last being Otto Preminger's Daisy Kenyon (1947), opposite Joan Crawford. He appeared in The Fugitive (1947), Ford's first film from his new production company, Argosy Pictures. In 1948, he appeared in a new Argosy/Ford film, Fort Apache, as a rigid Army colonel, as well as John Wayne and Shirley Temple in her first adult role.

Fonda returned to Broadway as part of a comedy about the United States Navy in the South Pacific Ocean, where Fonda, a junior officer, waged a private war against a tyrannical captain, despite a long-running studio contract. He received a 1948 Tony Award for his role. Fonda recalled his participation in the national tour and with successful stage runs in Point of No Return and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Fonda followed him. He appeared in the same role in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts starring James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon, extending his legendary stage performances to life on the big screen. Fonda came to blows with director John Ford, who screamed him during filming, and Fonda said she would never return to work for the director again. Fonda maintained his vow for years in Peter Bogdanovich's documentary Directed by John Ford and a film about Ford's career alongside Ford and James Stewart. Fonda refused to participate until Ford informed Fonda that Ford had insisted on casting Fonda as the lead in Mr. Roberts' film version, sparking Fonda's film career after focusing on the stage for years.

Fonda was next in Paramount Pictures' production of War and Peace (1956), about French Emperor Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, in which he played Pierre Bezukhov opposite Audrey Hepburn; it took two years to shoot. Fonda was in 1956 working with Alfred Hitchcock as a man wrongfully accused of murder in The Wrong Man; Hitchcock's strange semidocumentary film was partially shot on location and based on an actual event.

Fonda made his first foray into production with 12 Angry Men, in which he also appeared. The film was based on a teleplay and a script by Reginald Rose and was directed by Sidney Lumet. The low-budget film was completed in 17 days, the majority in a claustrophobic jury room. It had a strong cast including Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, and E. G. Marshall. Critics around the world applauded the dramatic tale about twelve jurors determining the fate of a young man accused of murder. Fonda awarded the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations with co-producer Reginald Rose, and the 1958 BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his work as Juror 8. The film struggled early on, but it was a hit after receiving awards and accolades, but it was a huge success. Fonda vowed that he would never produce another film again, fearing that failing as a producer would derail his acting career. Fonda returned to film work for the NBC Western television series The Deputy (1959–1961), in which he appeared as Marshal Simon Fry, after appearing in the Western films The Tin Star (1957) and Warlock (1959). Allen Case and Read Morgan were his co-stars.

Fonda appeared in a number of war and Western epics during the 1960s, including 1962's The Longest Day and the Cinerama's How the West Was Won, 1965's In Harm's Way, and Battle of the Bulge. Fonda portrayed the President of the United States in the Cold War suspense film Fail-Safe (1964), after American bombers were incorrectly ordered to attack the USSR. In Spencer's Peak (1963), he returned to more light-hearted cinema, which was the inspiration for the 1970s TV series The Waltons, based on Earl Hamner's 1930s memories of him.

In 1968's "Once Upon a Time in the West," Fonda appeared in costume as the villain 'Frank.' After initially refusing to act in the role, actor Eli Wallach and director Sergio Leone (who had earlier tried to recruit him to do the Man with No Name in his Dollars Trilogy, which was later expanded to include Clint Eastwood) who travelled from Italy to the United States to convince him to audition him. Fonda had intended on wearing two brown-colored contact lenses, but Leone preferred the paradox of juxtaposing Fonda's innocent-looking blue eyes with Fonda's vivacious demeanor of the character.

Fonda's friendship with Jimmy Stewart over politics despite differences over politics – Fonda was a liberal Democrat and Stewart a centrist Republican. They didn't want to discuss politics with each other after a tense debate. Fonda again played the heavy when the two men met for Firecreek in 1968. Fonda and Stewart co-starred in the Western The Cheyenne Social Club in 1970, in which they humbly debated politics. They were first seen together on film in On Our Merry Way (1948), an episodic comedy that also starred William Demarest and Fred MacMurray and featured a grown-up Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, who had appeared as a child in 1930s Our Gang movie serials.

Fonda continued to work in theater, television, and film into the 1970s, as he approached his seventies. Fonda appeared in three films in 1970; the most popular was The Cheyenne Social Club. The other two films were Too Late the Hero, in which Fonda appeared in a secondary role, and There Was a Crooked Man about Paris Pitman Jr. (played by Kirk Douglas) attempting to flee from an Arizona jail.

Fonda returned to both foreign and television productions, which gave career stability during a decade in which many elderly screen actors' careers were fading. Between 1971 and 1972, he appeared in the ABC television series The Smith Family. Fonda received an Emmy nomination for a television version of John Steinbeck's book, 1973's The Red Pony. Ash Wednesday, the unsuccessful Hollywood melodrama, filmed three Italian films that were released in 1973 and 1974. My Name Is Nobody, the most popular of them all, appeared in Fonda for a rare comedic appearance as an old gunslinger whose attempts to recover are slowed by a "fan" of sorts.

Fonda has performed on stage throughout his career, including several leading roles in Broadway plays. In 1974, he returned to Broadway for the biographical drama Clarence Darrow for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Fonda's health had been declining for years, but his first outward signs occurred after a performance of the play in April 1974, when he collapsed from exhaustion. Following cancer surgery, he was fitted with a pacemaker after the onset of a cardiac arrest caused by prostate cancer. Fonda made a comeback to the stage in 1975. He took the advice of his doctors and resigned from theater after the run of a 1978 play, First Monday of October, although he continued to perform in films and television.

Fonda appeared in a revival of Your Life, which opened in Los Angeles on March 17, 1972, where Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Gloria Grahame, Ron Thompson, Strother Martin, Lewis J. Stadlen, Richard X. Slattery, and Pepper Martin were among the cast members, with Edwin Sherin directing.

Fonda appeared in several television films in 1976, the first being Collision Course (E. G. Marshall) and General MacArthur (Fonda), which ABC produced. After an appearance in Almos' a Man's acclaimed Showtime broadcast, based on a Richard Wright story, he appeared in the epic NBC miniseries Captains and Kings, based on Taylor Caldwell's book. He appeared in ABC's Roots: The Next Generations three years ago, but Roots was overshadowed by its predecessor, Roots. Fonda appeared in the World War II blockbuster Midway in 1976.

Fonda appeared in a number of disaster films in the 1970s. Fonda appeared in Tentacles and Rollercoaster, an Italian killer octopus thriller, in which Fonda appeared alongside George Segal, Richard Widmark, and a young Helen Hunt. In the epic bee action film The Swarm, he appeared with Widmark, Olivia de Havilland, Fred MacMurray, and José Ferrer once more. He appeared in Meteor (his second appearance as a sitting President of the United States after Fail-Safe), as Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, and Karl Malden, as well as the Canadian film City on Fire, which also featured Shelley Winters and Ava Gardner. Fonda had a small role with his son, Peter, in Sanda Nevada (1979), with Brooke Shields.

Critics began to recognize the value of Fonda's extensive body of work as his health worsened and he took longer breaks between filming. He received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1979. Jimmy Stewart, a members of the Awards Council, received his Golden Plate. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1979 for his performances on Broadway and received the Kennedy Center Prize. The Golden Globes and Academy Awards were awarded in 1980 and 1981, respectively, in 1980 and 1981.

Fonda continued to perform into the early 1980s, but only one of the performances in which he was featured before his death was for television. The television series included live performances of Preston Jones' The Oldest Living Graduate and Emmy-nominated Gideon's Trumpet (co-starring Fay Wray in her last appearance) about Clarence Gideon's fight to have the right to fully funded legal assistance for the disabled.

Ernest Thompson's film adaptation on Golden Pond in 1981 was one of Fonda's last professional and personal triumphs. Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, as well as Fonda and his daughter, Jane, were among the project's pioneering collaborations led by Mark Rydell. Fonda's older brother, who is physically ill and distant, became more accessible at the end of his life. Jane Fonda has said that elements of the story mimicked their real-life friendship and helped them with specific problems. She purchased the film rights in the hopes that her father would appear in the role and later described it as "a gift to my father that was so unbelievably popular."

The film, which premiered in December 1981, was well-reced by critics, and after a limited release on December 4, On Golden Pond attracted such a large audience that was widely distributed on January 22. The film received nearly $120 million at the box office, making it an unexpected blockbuster with ten Academy Award nominations. Fonda's only Oscar for Best Actress, as well as Thompson (Screenplay) was given to him on Golden Pond. (He was the youngest recipient of the award; it also gave him a Golden Globe Best Actor award). Fonda was too ill to attend the service, and his daughter Jane accepted on his behalf. "Well, ain't I lucky," she said as accepting the award. Fonda's appearance would be remembered as a "brutally honest portrayal of frightened old age" years later.

Fonda's last appearance was in the 1981 television drama Summer Solstice with Myrna Loy. It was shot after On Golden Pond had wrapped and Fonda was in rapidly declining health.

Source