Though they've spent three generations in the spotlight,
there's much more to the Fondas than their award-winning time in
Hollywood. This is the true and tragic real-life story of the Fonda family.
Patriarch Henry Fonda is known for his roles in Westerns like My Darling Clementine as well
as acclaimed classics such as 12 Angry Men and The Grapes of Wrath, and he won an Oscar for On Golden
Pond later in his acting career. Henry was known for taking very social justice-oriented roles,
and his childhood may be a clue as to why. When Henry was 14 years old,
he was taken by his father to witness the lynching and burning of a Black man named Will Brown,
according to the biography Hank and Jim : The Story of a Friendship.
Fonda's father was a salesman, and he grew up in a liberal Democrat household
in the middle of the American heartland in Omaha, Nebraska. The intense incident
Henry's father exposed him to at such a young age influenced his disdain for
violence and instilled a sense of duty in him to assist in fighting social injustice.
Henry's films reflect his values. In The Ox-Bow Incident, a film that came out in the midst of
World War II, his character even witnesses a lynching. Fonda was also known for taking
roles for admirable reasons, regardless of the likelihood of box office success. Sometimes,
he would even have to front some of his own funds to get films made,
including for 12 Angry Men. Fonda was known for being a rather serious person
and not always easy to get along with, which is often reflected in his career.
Frances Ford Seymour was a Canadian socialite from an aristocratic family. She was a distant relative
of the third wife of King Henry the Eighth, Jane Seymour, whom daughter Jane Fonda was named after.
Before she joined the Fonda family, Seymour was a widow raising her own daughter, Little Frances.
After being married to Henry Fonda for 13 years, Frances found herself part of a fraught existence.
She suffered from debilitating mental illness, and their marriage was on the rocks as Henry
requested a divorce so he could marry a woman 23 years his junior. On Frances' 42nd birthday,
she tragically took her own life while living in an institution. Jane was only 12,
and her brother Peter was only 10. They were told that their mother died of a heart attack.
It was only a year later that Jane found out the truth, thanks to a gossip rag.
"A year after my mother died, I was in study hall and a girlfriend
passed me a movie magazine, in which it said that my mother had cut her throat."
Jane also disclosed that shortly before her death,
her mother visited their house accompanied by a nurse. At the time, Jane and Peter were not
even told that their mother was staying in an institution and was simply, quote,
"away." When Frances requested to visit with Jane, she refused to come downstairs.
Jane would never see her mother again and still struggles with feelings of guilt about that day.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.
It wasn't easy for Peter and Jane Fonda to grow up with father Henry, who became increasingly
harder to get along with after their mother took her own life. The children were stuck relying
on their stepmothers for warmth. In an interview with The Virginian-Pilot, Peter Fonda explained:
"Growing up with my father was not easy. Jane and I didn't look forward to having dinner with him.
It's just that he was quiet and didn't talk much and we felt he was judging us,
and we didn't do much that was right. The dinner table was a scary place."
In a Q&A session with the British Film Institute, Peter explained that his father had difficulty
understanding his own choices as an actor, and wasn't shy about saying so. Peter also added that
because Henry grew up in a Christian Scientist household, they were raised to believe that any
pain could be fixed by prayer alone, and that crying was, quote, "not acceptable." According
to his children, Henry was also very shy, and he was afraid to convey strong emotion offscreen.
"So they both went through what is recognized and called classic rebellion,
and I like to think that I was smart enough to recognize it for what it was."
Henry and Peter had a fraught father-son relationship, and Henry could be abusive.
Peter was sent to boarding school when he was only six years old,
so he didn't see his father often in his youth.
One of Peter's first memories of his father is when Henry had just come back from serving in
World War II. In his 1998 book, Don't Tell Dad: A Memoir, Peter recalls making his
way to his father's dressing room, where he found a box of candies and took one.
"I made it into my bathroom, locking the door, but then Dad kicked the door in. He picked me up
by my small, terrified neck and carried me into my bedroom, giving me the spanking of my life."
Like Jane, Peter also recalls being lied to about his mother's cause of death,
and he wouldn't learn the truth of her suicide until years later.
After she passed, Peter wrote in his memoir that, quote, "no one ever talked about Mom."
Jane and Henry Fonda's relationship didn't fare much better and left her
with long-lasting psychological damage. Jane revealed in an interview with Harper's Bazaar
that her father embedded unhealthy beauty expectations in his daughter. As she put it:
"I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly. He was a good man,
and I was mad for him, but he sent messages to me that fathers should not send:
Unless you look perfect, you're not going to be loved."
She also revealed later in life that she had been molested as a child,
raped in adulthood, and fired from a job because she wouldn't sleep with her boss.
Jane admitted that out of sheer insecurity, and a lack of sense of self, she was too afraid to
say no to anybody. She suffered from bulimia well into her thirties, saying that she mostly
survived on cigarettes, coffee, and strawberry yogurt. In Jane's case, pain was beauty.
Following in her father's rocky marital footsteps,
Jane Fonda was married and divorced three times. Her relationships were dysfunctional,
and Jane revealed later that they were at times abusive and unfaithful.
Jane admitted that she was lost and didn't know who she
was when she married her first husband, director Roger Vadim,
in 1965. They divorced after eight years of marriage. Vadim didn't believe in monogamy,
and Jane later admitted to feeling pressured into a threesome with a call girl and the French
director. Vadim also had a gambling problem, which often left Jane picking up the financial pieces.
In a drastic change of direction, Jane married Vietnam anti-war activist Tom
Hayden within the same year as her divorce from Roger. His influence was somewhat responsible
for amping up her activism work, which would later get her into legal trouble. They were
married for 17 years, but Jane later admitted that Hayden was a womanizer and controlling.
Her third and last marriage, to billionaire and CNN founder Ted Turner, didn't fare much better.
According to The Telegraph, Jane got physically abusive with Ted, hitting him in the head with a
telephone, after finding out he cheated on her only a month after they were married.
Peter Fonda's image became the polar opposite of his father's.
Henry Fonda's movie star persona was the wholesome All-American with a conscience,
but Peter wanted to be free of his father's shadow in the midst of the '60s beatnik movement.
His starring role in Easy Rider was the turning point in his career, but reality and fiction had
already become blurred for Peter as he leaned into the hippie counterculture.
He would even be turned away for multiple roles because of his recreational drug use.
Peter was arrested for marijuana possession in 1966, the same year he protested for the
rights of young people in a riot on the Sunset Strip. After that incident,
he became involved in politics and environmental issues, much like his sister, Jane.
Peter opened up later in life about having post-traumatic stress disorder
from a very young age. As he told The Los Angeles Times:
"I knew I was nuts. I had no idea how to deal with it and it was getting in my way. In 2004, I found
what was wrong. I had never heard the term PTSD. That's what I suffered since I was 6 years old."
Jane Fonda is just as famous for her activism as she is for her film roles. Known for her work
with the Black Panther Party and Native American rights organizations, she spent a night in jail
in 1970 for protesting the Vietnam War and was later nicknamed Hanoi Jane after the formation
of the Free Army Tour, an anti-war military tour created to counter Bob Hope's USO tour.
She was officially arrested on drug charges, but it was later revealed that President Nixon
had manipulated the situation due to his discontent with her anti-war messaging.
As it turns out, the FBI and CIA had been surveilling Jane,
and the NSA was tapping her calls, according to The Washington Post.
She received the infamous "Hanoi Jane" title in 1972, when Fonda toured North Vietnam,
where she spoke against the U.S. military's policy in Vietnam and begged pilots to
stop bombing non-military targets on numerous radio programs. During the trip,
a photograph captured a moment of Jane sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi,
which became quite a PR problem for the actress back home and continues to haunt
her through veterans' protests even today. Jane has since apologized for the photo.
"I will go to my grave regretting the fact that I was photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun."
Some American lawmakers, as well as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, saw her actions as treasonous
and sought retaliation against her. But many Americans agreed with her activism,
and some veterans even respected her stance, even if they didn't agree with it.
Jane Fonda's daughter Vanessa Vadim, with first husband Roger Vadim, came at a tough time in her
adult life, and she struggled with postpartum depression. The two didn't have a very warm
mother-daughter relationship until later in life, when they bonded over climate activism.
"I felt like I was a bad mother, and I was terrified."
Jane was arrested again during the weekly 2020 environmental strikes outside the Capitol. Jane
committed to showing up for the Washington, D.C. Fire Drill Friday protests, using her celebrity
to call attention to the important issue, and became a fixture of the effort. Vanessa
met up with her mother after she was released from a night in jail. As Jane told the press:
"When I came out of jail I didn't know she was
going to be there and we just looked at each other and burst into tears."
Jane attributes much of her activist work to her father,
as she explained in an interview with The Guardian.
"As I was growing up he was making films like 12 Angry Men and The Grapes of Wrath,
playing characters who spoke up for justice, who fought for the underdog.
I knew he loved these characters and I wanted him to love me. He used acting as a mask behind
which to hide his emotions; he abhorred anything that showed his vulnerability."
Peter Fonda was constantly asked if he would reprise his father's roles,
such as in a 12 Angry Men reboot, but Peter would always decline. Both actors
struggled to break away from his legacy but found their own powerful voices in time.
Despite multiple hardships within their family, the Fondas found support and camaraderie among
one another as time passed, and managed to heal some old wounds.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Grunge videos about your favorite Hollywood legends are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.