Jane Fonda

About Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American two-time Academy Award-winning actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou and has appeared in films ever since. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. She initially announced her retirement from acting in 1991, and said for many years that she would never act again, but she returned to film in 2005 with Monster in Law, and later Georgia Rule, released in 2007. She also produced and starred in several exercise videos released between 1982 and 1995.

Fonda has served as an activist for many political causes, one of the most notable and controversial of which was her opposition to the Vietnam War. She has also protested the Iraq War and violence against women. She describes herself as a liberal and a feminist. Since 2001, Fonda has been a Christian. She published an autobiography in 2005 and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fonda was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour, and named Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda. Henry Fonda had distant Dutch ancestry, and the surname Fonda originates from Friesland, a northern province of the Netherlands. The "Lady" part of Jane Fonda's name was apparently inspired by Lady Jane Seymour, to whom she is distantly related on her mother's side. Her brother, Peter Fonda (born 1940), and her niece Bridget Fonda (born 1964), are also actors. She has an older half-sister, Frances Brokaw, as well as an adopted sister, Amy.