(clicks)
(whirs)
(clicks)
(whirring)
Tonight, Lux is visiting
one of Hollywood's most
exciting new stars,
Jane Fonda.
Jane's been using Lux--
How long, Jane?
Ever since my first roles
in summer stock,
I could see that a star
just had to have
a really lovely complexion.
Bennett Cerf:
Might I assume that
you are a, uh,
very lovely lady?
-John Daly: That you may.
-(audience applauds)
Dildano:
Well, will you
join our cause?
What cause?
Who are you?
(man speaking in French)
(Jane speaks French)
The woman in the helmet is
Jane Fonda, the actress.
Actress Jane Fonda was arrested
today at the airport
in Cleveland.
The Justice Department said
it is attempting to determine
whether Ms. Fonda
had violated
sedition, treason
or other statutes.
Any healthy country,
like any healthy individual,
should be
in perpetual revolution,
perpetual change.
Phil Donahue:
You just may be the most
talked about personality
in the country today.
There's a lot of, uh,
hostility towards you.
Ah! The winner is
Jane Fonda in Coming Home.
(cheers, applause)
Johnny Carson:
My first guest tonight is
a gal that I admire highly.
Funny thing how people
who were called radicals
at the time
now are considered right-on.
(cheering)
Jane Fonda:
You have to have
the courage to speak
about the changes
that are needed
and it includes challenging,
at the root,
the corporate power
that has taken over
the economy of this country.
(cameras clicking)
Lesley Stahl:
You turn around
and marry a billionaire.
How do you go
from one to the other
without completely losing
yourself somewhere in there?
(birds twittering)
(hair dryer whirring)
Ow!
Hairstylist:
Sorry.
(whirring stops)
To drink or not to drink.
(man laughs)
I think I'll drink.
(Jane sighs)
The problem is
they only serve wine.
Oh, really?
They're not doing--
They don't do champagne?
I-I don't drink champagne.
I don't drink wine.
I drink vodka.
(laughs)
Well, maybe they can--
-I'll have to bribe somebody.
-(laughs)
Jane:
You know the two times
that I won an Oscar,
I did my own hair and makeup.
You're kidding?
When I picked up
the Oscar for my dad...
it looked like
the Lindbergh baby
was hidden in my hair.
-(laughs)
-It's, it's that hair there.
I mean, it was the '80s,
just to be fair to myself.
Okay, Fonda, keep your chin up.
-It's Jane Fonda!
-(cheering)
(crowd cheering, screaming)
Photographer:
Ms. Fonda, that--
Yeah, could we have
one smile this way?
One smile?
Thank you.
Lily Tomlin: Has
Vanity Fair been published?
-Jane: Yes.
-Just this month?
-Yes, and I'm on the cover.
Aw. Yeah, I wouldn't get
on the cover.
(laughs) I never thought...
I'd never have thought
that I would ever--
Were they Hollywood women?
Is that it?
-It was called
the Year of the Woman--
-Was it Saoirse?
-Not even from Hollywood.
-It was.
-Irish.
-(laughs)
-Brie Larson?
-Yeah.
Oh, same old--
Helen Mirren?
-Yes.
-(cackles)
-They took me out
and put you in.
-Yeah, they did.
Lily:
They aced me out.
-Jane: It went from
21-year-old Saoirse...
-Lily: This is your fault.
...to 78-year-old me.
Yeah.
-Well, that's no big deal.
-(laughs)
After 53 years of friendship
and 11 films together,
you don't think I'm gonna start
to bullshit you now, do you?
-You of all people?
-No, I don't!
I wouldn't deserve that.
That's right.
You don't deserve it.
You deserve me to call
a spade a spade,
which is why I dragged
my a*s here from LA.
Look, Brenda,
if it's about scene 21,
where you're described
as "ugly,"
"feeble," uh, "a pale shadow
of your former beauty."
Please, realize
that's just poetic license.
You still preserve intact.
You have to.
That mystery, that allure
you had when you first
became a diva.
Dinah Shore:
When you were
little lady Jane Fonda,
up on Tigertail Road...
did you dream about
being an actress?
Did you wanna be?
Did I want to be an actress?
No, not until I was, uh,
well into my 20s.
-I-I didn't, um...
-Really? 'Cause
you were so--
-I think when you grow up
in the industry...
-Mm-hmm.
...and you see, uh,
what the people are
-really like
behind their masks...
-Mm-hm.
...you know,
you're not too encouraged
to become an actor.
(cheers, applause)
Jane:
I grew up in the shadow
of a national monument.
Wait a minute, buddy.
You just done some jackassin'.
You can't shut up now.
The handbill said
they need 800 pickers,
you laugh and say
they don't.
Which one's the liar?
Jane:
My dad, his values,
you know, solid American...
Midwestern values:
fairness, equality, justice.
Stand up for the underdog,
and that's why he gravitated
to characters like Tom Joad
in Grapes of Wrath,
and The Ox-Bow Incident,
which was about a lynching
and racism.
12 Angry Men , I mean,
without him ever saying so,
I knew that these movies
expressed what he could
never say verbally.
He was the face
of the America that...
people wanted to believe in.
I was Henry Fonda's daughter,
which, of course, meant
that I was polite,
I was nice... (laughs)
...I was
the girl next door.
All the things
that I didn't feel I was.
I didn't like my body.
I didn't like myself. I...
I felt shy.
We looked like
the American Dream.
Rich, beautiful,
close...
but a lot of it
was simply myth.
This is the summer
when I was 11.
It was staged
for some magazine,
I don't remember which one.
Then there's my brother,
Peter, and my mother.
She had been in and out
of institutions by that time,
and when I look at her face,
I can see the anxiety
and the stress,
and it makes me
very, very sad.
I didn't know why,
but I had an aversion to her.
My team is the winning team,
my team is the man,
my dad.
And you can tell
he is not present at all.
(laughs)
He was having an affair
with a far younger woman.
Family picnic.
To me, that is a very...
sad picture.
It says it all.
(birds singing)
Jane: I was alone
a lot growing up.
I spent all my time
roaming the hills.
I wanted to be Tonto.
In those days, when you
really became somebody,
it meant that you were...
independent,
you didn't need anybody.
But then I'd look
into the windows of houses
where people were sitting
at the table...
and I remember,
it would bring up a feeling
of longing in me.
And I figured,
whatever it is that creates
that thing
that I'm looking at,
that warm...
glow of light,
people laughing and talking,
that will never be mine.
Mr. Austin:
Henry Fonda,
we name you
Stage Father of 1952.
Here is your medal
and my heartiest
congratulations.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Austin.
I feel very honored.
I just hope that
my Jane and Peter
are gonna be properly impressed.
Jane:
He was a hero
to so many people.
But...
these kind of men
aren't always good fathers.
It's hard to be both.
I wanted to please dad.
Who would you like me to be?
I'll do whatever you want,
'cause I want you
to love me.
Peter was the opposite.
If he was scared,
he'd cried.
If he was angry with dad,
he'd show it.
And it was
really hard on Peter.
He had it way harder than me.
Peter Fonda:
It's more difficult for Jane
than it is for me, actually.
You see, it's not that he wasn't
or isn't a loving person at all.
He just... has no character
with a script that says,
"Henry Fonda:
Fonda says, 'I love you son,'"
and he would be able to
handle it.
Without that script,
he's got nothing to do.
I mean, he has to have the mask
in order to express.
Jane has no way to attach
herself to Henry.
She's lost out there
as his daughter.
Jane:
I was 20, maybe 21,
still living
at my father's house
on the beach in Malibu.
My stepmother had
given me an ultimatum:
"Come fall, you have to move
out of the house."
What was I gonna do?
A quarter-mile down the beach
was Lee Strasberg's house.
He was the great acting coach.
He taught people like
Paul Newman and James Dean,
and, of course, Marilyn Monroe.
I walked down the beach,
took off my high-heeled shoes
to walk in the sand.
I knocked on the back door
after having put my shoes
back on.
He let me in.
He later said,
"She seemed to be the most
boring, conventional girl...
"except when I looked
into her eyes,
there was a lot hidden."
And he took me
into his class.
Lee taught us
to... dive deep
into your own psyche,
private moments,
sensory memories,
to bring a deeper life
to your character.
I was so scared.
I sat in the back.
I would've been happy
if I never ended up
performing in that class.
Eventually, after
about two months,
Lee said, "Okay.
"You know, tomorrow
you're gonna do it."
The class was
fuller than usual.
I think they wanted
to come see
Henry Fonda's daughter
fall on her face.
And then I remember
when I was through,
Lee was silent
for a long time.
And then he said, "You know,
I see a lot of people
come through here.
You have real talent."
I swear...
it was like someone had opened
the top of my head
and birds flew out.
(noisy chattering)
Man:
Everyone off the steps.
(squeals)
Jane:
Diane?
-(inaudible)
-Jane: I can't stand it!
(camera rolling)
Jane:
The first time you really
discover something you love,
organically love to do,
you go to sleep loving it,
and you wake up and you love it,
and you don't have to think
about it,
and you don't mind
staying home alone at night
because you've got this thing
that you really love to do.
(applause)
(car honks)
Charles Colllingwood:
Jane Fonda
decided to follow
the well-known path trod
by her distinguished father,
actor Henry Fonda.
Jane worked as
a photographer's model
to earn a living
while she mastered the art.
-Hello, Jane.
-Hello, Charlie.
I think that we caught
you just moving
into this apartment.
You certainly did.
Jane, do you think
it's important for a girl
starting out to be
on her own,
to have her own apartment
like this?
Well, I think, uh...
it helps, I think,
to be away from the family,
particularly for me.
You know, if a child
and the parent
work in the same business,
it's uh, you feel more
independent, you know.
I feel...
I don't have to always
be explaining what I'm doing
and everything like that.
-Uh, you're--
- I hope my father's
not listening to this.
He probably is.
(cars honking)
Jane:
I had this
instantaneous career.
I was doing plays
on Broadway.
I was making movies
in Hollywood.
I was nominated for a Tony
and won the New York Drama
Critics' Circle Award
for the most promising actress
of the year for drama.
Well, it says outside
that-- that Brad and I
are starring in the show,
you know, and that's one
of the reasons that people
are coming.
But I don't feel...
I don't feel that I can...
quite live up to that,
you know?
It's a funny feeling.
Jane: During
that period of time,
I was asked to audition,
for Kazan,
for the female lead in
Splendor in the Grass that
Natalie Wood ended up doing.
It was in a theater, and Kazan
called me down to the footlights
and-- and he was standing below
and he looked up at me,
and he said,
"Are you ambitious?"
And I said, "No!"
Talk about self-betrayal.
I just wanted to be okay.
I wanted to be a good girl.
A good girl
is not an ambitious person.
(marching band playing)
Jane: I got hired
for a whole string
of girl next door,
ingnues,
and I became the actor
that would get the light,
romantic comedies
that would start as plays
on Broadway and then they'd
be made into films.
(marching band continuing)
Ralph:
She's already
made him a sissy.
George:
Oh man,
that do it every time.
-Mm-hmm.
-She'll be back tomorrow,
at the latest.
-(clears throat)
-Well, let 'em.
George, will you please
get my little blue zipper bag?
Please?
You know what
I had in mind?
-Isabel: George?
-Hong Kong.
(screaming): All right!
I'll get it myself!
-Huh?
-I'll go out
and get it myself!
Jane: You know,
and I was, okay at it.
I was all right.
Oh, ow!
I knew how to talk
kind of high
and blink my eyes and...
Whoa.
This is the Plaza Hotel, please.
Plaza. Corie, it's the Plaza.
Wait a minute,
I'm not finished.
Corie, the man is waiting,
waiting.
Give him a big tip.
Paul, tell me
you're not sorry
we got married.
After 40 minutes?
Let's give it
a couple of hours first.
Paul, if the honeymoon
doesn't work out,
let's not get divorced,
let's k*ll each other.
Let's have one
of the maids do it.
I hear the service here
is wonderful.
Sometimes you just find
yourself in sync,
and that happened
from the very beginning
with Jane.
There was just something that,
that naturally developed
between us.
There was a chemistry
that just was there,
and it was also fun.
She saw the humor in things,
but at the same time,
she shared her insecurities
and her doubts.
In our friendship,
we've been very honest
with each other
about our angers,
our frustrations.
And, at a certain point,
Jane just had an instinct
that said,
"Down deep,
there's something missing."
Jane:
A lot of other people
were defining me,
all of them men.
I never felt real.
I just thought,
"I've got to get out from
under my father's shadow.
"Maybe if I go to France
during the new wave period,
"I will...
find who I really am."
I was always in search
of some per-- somebody
that was real in there.
(man speaking in French)
(speaking in French)
(clacks)
Jane:
One night, when
I first arrived in Paris,
I was at Maxim's
with a group of actors,
and Roger Vadim walked in.
I knew that
he had a reputation.
He had been married
to Brigitte Bardot and he'd had
a child with Catherine Deneuve.
He had already directed
And God Created Woman.
He was a rock star.
He walked in,
and I immediately felt
endangered.
He felt predatory,
but charming,
sexy. (gasps)
I promised myself,
"I will never make a movie
with Roger Vadim."
(interviewer speaking in French)
Jane:
I was making
the Rene Clement movie
called Les Felins .
Why are you looking
at me like that?
Am I attractive to you?
I had just done a scene
where I'm in a teddy, you know,
a little underwear,
and, uh, I-- I got a...
message that Vadim
was in the canteen
and-- and wanted to see me.
I realized that I was
excited to see him.
I threw on my trench coat,
and as I ran
into the canteen,
the trench coat blew open.
(chuckles)
And that night,
we went back to my hotel.
He didn't speak
very good English.
(laughs)
Maybe if he had,
I'd never have married him.
You know,
Vadim's so charismatic,
so utterly seductive
and charming.
You walked down
the Champs-lyses
with Vadim,
it was like walking
down the street
with Robert Redford.
I mean,
people would like... (gasps)
They'd freak
and ask for
his autograph, and...
Our life together was heady
and, um, slightly hedonistic.
But then there was this
old shoe quality to him,
it was this
comfortable part of him.
Nathalie!
Jane:
He'd cross town to see
his daughter every day.
Aww.
Oh.
Nathalie Vadim:
Jane came into my life
when I was three.
She looked very young,
I remember that.
Younger than she was.
I would see
my biological mother rarely.
And Jane was always there.
And so I became
really close to her.
She became my surrogate mother,
basically,
and the person who--
who raised me.
Jane: We moved
into a farmhouse that
I bought outside of Paris.
There was something
so appealing to me
about putting down roots.
I saw myself
being married
and having a family
and living in France.
Well,
Vadim was
so full of contradictions.
There were a lot of issues
that I just chose not to see.
I didn't know what compulsive
gambling was or alcoholism.
If I would complain,
he would call me bourgeois.
Oh my God... forbid
that you would ever
be worried about money
or complain about money
or complain about
extramarital affairs
or anything like that.
Nathalie:
When she finds an interest,
she's focused on it.
At that point, that interest
was Vadim, so...
she became what Vadim wanted.
Merv Griffin: Does he know
you that well, Jane?
I think he, he knows me
better than I know me.
(chuckles)
Actresses are
usually quite... dumb.
We're really quite stupid
about what we think
we can do well.
And it's the director
that comes along
and makes us use muscles
we've never used before.
Vadim...
does that all the time.
I would say, "I can't do that,
I-- I can't play that scene."
And he'd make me do it,
and they'd be the good scenes.
Jane:
Here I was, trying
to not be defined by men,
ended up with a man
who was the ultimate
definer of femininity.
That's where I was at that time.
I wanted someone to mold me.
I wanted him...
to help me become a woman.
Dino De Laurentiis sent me
the very famous French
comic book called, Barbarella.
He wanted to make a movie,
and would I play Barbarella.
Now, I knew
that Bardot had turned it down,
Sophia Loren had turned it down,
and I didn't want to do it.
I mean,
I look at these pictures,
I didn't identify
with Barbarella.
Well, Vadim was, I think,
probably the number one
science fiction aficionado
in the world.
So, when you have
a science fiction story
that's about sex...
there was no way
I was not gonna do this movie,
and he was going to direct it.
Vadim wanted the film to open
with a space strip tease.
He took the set
and turned it so that
the opening of the set
was facing the ceiling
of the sound stage.
Then he put a very thick
pane of glass over it,
and then I laid on top
of the glass
like I was floating in space.
Barbarella psychedella
Man:
Barbarella psychedella
Never can a fella name
or call you
Barbarella
Ba-ba-ba...
Jane: And then I had
to be naked.
I was drunk. I drank
so much vodka to do that.
It was so terrifying for me.
Ba-Ba-Barbarella!
And then the next morning,
we hear that a bat
had flown...
between me and the camera
that was hanging
from the ceiling.
and spoiled the take
and we had to do it again.
(laughs)
Oh, God.
So the take that actually
got used,
I was not only drunk,
I was hungover, too.
Are you typical
of Earth women?
I'm about average.
Jane:
When I look at the movie now,
I thoroughly enjoy it.
I mean,
I think it's just a camp
romp, really. I don't think
it's particularly sexy.
I wasn't a questioner.
Superficial can
come pretty easy to me.
(scoffs)
I mean, it's more convenient.
You know, I spent...
quite a few decades
not asking too many questions.
There was a time when
I believed so strongly
that if American soldiers
were fighting somewhere,
we had to be
on the side of the angels.
It was inconceivable to me
that it could be otherwise.
My father had fought
in the Second World w*r.
He was so proud of it,
I understood that.
I mean, I was
Miss Army Recruiter in 1959.
(distant bombs exploding)
I remember in 1964,
Vadim and I were
in St. Tropez.
He picked up the paper,
and the headlines
were talking about
how Congress had passed
the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.
(rapid g*nf*re)
Vadim erupted,
my non-political husband.
(exclaiming in French)
"What are they doing?
There is no way
they can win that w*r."
"Your Congress
is out of its mind."
And I'm thinking, "Sour grapes.
Just 'cause you guys didn't win,
the French, when you fought
the Vietnamese." You know?
That was how...
little I knew.
I had grown very close
to Simone Signoret.
She was one of the top
French movie stars.
And she had become
an activist.
Artists, writers,
poets, philosophers
were at the forefront
of activism.
Simone de Beauvoir,
Jean Paul Sartre.
I didn't really move
in those circles
with the exception
of Simone Signoret.
She kind of...
opened the door
a crack for me.
But, you know,
I remember thinking,
"I'm not as smart
as she thinks I am."
I was pregnant.
I think that
when a woman is pregnant,
more than ever,
she's like a sponge.
Very attuned to and receptive to
what's in the ether.
Not just around her,
but in the world.
I'm watching on television
the Tet Offensive.
(distant explosions)
(shouting)
I'm looking at
newsreel from Chicago.
Tom Hayden:
We are going to gather here
by any means necessary.
The demonstrations,
the beatings, the bloodiness.
I thought of Simone.
I drove to her farmhouse
out in the country.
And I remember, she opened
the door and she said,
"I've been waiting for you."
She said, "I knew you'd come
to talk about the w*r."
Simone explained
to me that,
that the Vietnamese
had been fighting
for thousands of years,
against the Mongols,
against China.
They had always won.
For America to fight a w*r
thousands and thousands
of miles away,
in a country
that they didn't understand,
against a people who...
wanted, above all else,
independence.
(flames whooshing)
There was no way
that we could win.
You know,
it's funny, suddenly,
I felt, more than I ever had,
American.
It seems
completely contradictory,
you know, in a few years,
people that didn't like me
were saying,
"Go back to Hanoi,"
and all that.
But I felt, "No, no, no,
this is...
"We've taken a wrong path.
"I want to be with my people,
in my country,
"and try to make this right."
I really, I wanted my life
to have meaning.
But I was married,
and I was pregnant, and...
Oh my gosh.
I don't know what to do.
I said,
I just don't know what to do.
She realized that
there was more to life
than just being
a housewife, actress.
And Vadim,
although progressive,
getting involved in politics,
and really getting involved,
was not his thing.
Jane:
Vanessa was born...
and it was a very, very,
very traumatic birth.
They used forceps,
and they tore me.
I hemorrhaged a lot.
I was suffering
from postpartum depression.
My milk didn't come...
That bond that's supposed
to happen, um,
it just didn't.
I felt like I was
the bad mother,
and I was terrified.
It surprised me,
this feeling of fear.
And, you know, later on,
as I look back on it,
I know why.
It was because...
(stammers)
(sighs)
It's hard to talk about. Um...
I always saw my mother
as a victim.
Women equals victim.
"I am a woman,
I am gonna be damaged,
I am gonna be crushed."
My mother was
a very complicated woman,
very, very beautiful woman,
but she always
seemed sick.
We'd sit in the living room,
and she'd hold my hand,
and her hand would be
trembling like this.
And...
I didn't want her
to feel bad so I would
make my hand tremble, too.
I mean, it was--
it was hard to figure out
what was happening with her.
Poor mom.
I think my father was not
the person she ever
should have married.
He was not kind to her.
My father went to Broadway
to do Mr. Roberts.
And so we moved
to Connecticut.
My mother... that was
where her mental health
was really deteriorating.
I didn't know it
at the time,
but the sister
of the stage manager
was seven years
older than me,
and my father had fallen
in love with her.
It was a difficult time
for my mother, obviously.
I remember sitting
at dinner...
We ate Spam,
not all the time,
but occasionally, it would be
canned fruit and Spam.
Very weird.
And sitting at the table,
I looked down
and my mother was--
there were tears
pouring down her face
onto her dinner plate.
And my grandmother was here,
and my brother--
and no one said a word.
And I remember,
one afternoon her
being taken to a hospital.
The last time she came home,
she has convinced the people
at the institution
that she was getting well
and they let her come home,
with a nurse accompanying her.
My brother and I
had been upstairs
playing jacks.
Grandma called for us
to come down,
and I wouldn't go.
I said to Peter,
"You go and I'll let you win,
if you go down, I'm not going."
I never saw her again.
That was the day she snuck
a razor out of the house,
and then k*lled herself.
I came home
from school one day,
my father and my grandmother
were sitting in the living room,
and they sat me down,
and they said,
"Your mother
died of a heart attack."
I could hear Peter crying.
And I kept thinking,
"Why can't I cry?"
I never cried.
I never cried,
I sat on the edge of my bed
thinking,
"What's the matter with me?"
And people would say,
"God, Jane
isn't she amazing?
"She's so strong."
So it was like approbation
for keeping it all in.
And that became
my modus operandi.
Um...
it was very hard
for me to ever be able
to kinda do away
with that.
It took a long, long time.
Um...
Susan Lacy:
Did you notice, uh,
or observe
how your father reacted
to your mother's death?
Well, dad came out
and he dropped the news,
and then went back to New York
and did his play.
Um...
that was dad.
The show must go on.
(train rattling)
My father took me
to Union Station,
with my suitcase,
and put me on the train
to boarding school.
He was newly married.
He was in a play
on Broadway, and...
making films in the summer.
I mean, it was obvious
that Peter and I
couldn't continue living
at home with him.
Nobody had ever talked to us
about what had happened
with my mother.
I found out
because of a movie magazine.
And it said,
"Henry Fonda's ex-wife,
Frances de Villers Fonda,
"cut her throat with a razor
at the Riggs Institute," and...
It was an awkward situation
on a lot of different levels.
And, to my dad,
boarding school
was getting us
into a safe place,
and it was also getting us
out of his hair.
(indistinct chatter)
It was like a haven.
It was a-- it was the
steady thing in my life.
It was the core of my life.
I became very aware
of the fact that
I was really different,
not just because
my father was famous.
We just lived differently.
There was no...
continuity.
Susan was his third wife,
he would have two more
after that.
I didn't have a community
of friends
that I had gone to school with
before I came here.
My friends were the friends
that I made here.
I loved it.
I loved biology.
I also loved history.
I loved the Roman
and Greek history.
That's how I got into bulimia,
learning about how the Romans
would gorge themselves
and then...
I had a roommate,
Carol Bentley.
Carol taught me to do this.
And of course...
you know, we didn't realize...
what we were starting,
we didn't realize how--
how dangerous it was,
and how addictive,
and how it would affect
so much of our lives.
But it's-- it started here.
You never told anybody
that you were...
doing this.
I thought it was just
her and me and the Romans.
It never occurred to me
that anybody else did it.
Mothers are often
blamed for that,
but for me,
it was-- it was my dad.
I made him ashamed.
He thought I was fat...
because I didn't look
the way he wanted me to look.
I knew that
he didn't want me around,
or that I embarrassed him,
and, I mean,
he told people that.
I heard my father say things
about my body
that has twisted my life
in deep ways ever since.
And, by the way,
most of his wives suffered
from eating disorders,
including my mother.
So the shadow
of my mother's suicide,
which happened a year
before I went to Emma Willard,
was never far away.
(sighs)
I'm gonna get off
this merry-go-round.
I'm so sick
of the whole stinkin' thing.
What thing?
Life.
They sh**t Horses, Don't They?
was the first time I had ever
made a movie that...
was about something.
It's a metaphor, in a way,
for...
American society, greed.
And the desperation
of people who don't
have money and privilege.
During the Depression,
people would go
to these dance marathons
to try to win
all kinds of prizes.
And they would dance
without stopping for weeks.
Announcer:
These wonderful kids
deserve your cheers
because each one of them
is fighting down pain,
exhaustion, weariness,
struggling to keep going,
battling to win.
And isn't that the American way?
(crowd cheering)
Jane: Before
we started sh**ting,
Sydney Pollack called me.
I didn't know who he was.
He'd made, maybe,
one other movie.
And I'll never forget it,
he said, "You know, what do
you think of the script?
"Tell me what
you think we've left out.
"Let me know if you think
there's something important."
Well, I mean, no director had--
including my husband,
who directed me
in several movies--
had ever...
talked to me that way,
asked my opinion
about things that were profound.
Sydney Pollack:
I always had this sense
that she was...
a serious actress
buried inside this glamour-puss.
Work, work, work!
They sh**t Horses,
Don't They?
was a much darker film,
and asked her to go
to a different place
in herself.
And she was great
in the role.
There's not a shred of vanity
in the performance.
Jane:
Syndey made me feel seen,
and of worth.
And so I thought,
"Yeah, I'm gonna go there."
I threw myself
into the character
the way I never had before.
I lived at the studio.
I looked at paintings
and pictures of crazy people.
I wrapped myself
in a cocoon of darkness.
I had a...
six-month-old child
and a husband.
But I just didn't have
the technique yet
where I could go
as far down the dark hole
as I possibly could,
and be a wife and mother.
I had to stay
in the dark hole.
The presence of my mother
was with me.
I had to get myself
to a point
where I really felt...
"Why go on?
There's absolutely no point."
(g*n c*ck)
Now?
Now.
(g*nsh*t echoes)
(birds twittering)
Then, something shifted.
My wig from They sh**t Horses
comes off,
I've got this long,
still-Barbarella-esque hair,
and I just thought,
"This is not me anymore."
I had my first hair epiphany.
Someone said my hair
needed its own agent.
And I went to Vadim's barber,
Paul McGregor,
who had a salon
in Greenwich Village,
and I said,
"Do something.
Cut if off."
And he gave me
what has become known
as the Klute hairdo.
I was very conflicted about
whether it was a good idea
to be playing a hooker.
Before we started sh**ting,
I came to New York and spent
a week with call girls
and madams,
really in the bowels
of that dark world.
There was a hardness
to them that was
painful to watch.
Not one pimp looked
at me twice,
didn't even wink at me.
And what that said
to me was, it played
right to my insecurities,
"They know...
I'm just an upper-class,
privileged pretender."
And that's what motivated me
to say to Alan Pakula,
"I just-- I don't-- I don't know
if I can play this character.
And you should hire
Faye Dunaway."
Pakula: She came up
to me and she said,
"Alan, I want out.
I don't know what I'm doing."
And "I just think
I'm wrong for this.
I think it's not gonna work."
Get somebody else."
And I said,
"I'm not letting you out."
There was no way
I would have done
that picture without Jane.
Jane is a fascinating
combination
of a woman
who has great courage,
great strength,
and at the same time,
had been used to being--
like maybe attracted
to being controlled
by somebody else.
And I thought,
where Jane was
in her life then,
in a very transition time,
was absolutely right
for this character
of a woman who's trying
to change her life.
Jane:
I brought something
different to Klute
than I had before.
She was wounded.
There was no ability
to trust anymore,
that was what was
so hard for her.
Once I began to kind of
marinate in that feeling,
I could, um...
then I could play her.
Psychiatrist:
What's the difference
between going out on a call
as a model or as an actress
or as a call girl?
You're successful
as a call girl,
you're not suc--
Because when you're a call girl,
you control it, that's why.
Jane: I said to Alan,
"Can we sh**t all those
psychiatrist's scenes
"at the very, very end...
when I've internalized her
the most completely?"
Nothing was written.
I hadn't prepared anything
in particular.
I just wanted to be present
in the moment,
and let whatever happened
happen.
I just started improvising.
And for an hour...
For an hour, I'm the best
actress in the world
and the best f*ck
in the world, and...
you don't have
to feel anything,
you don't have
to care about anything,
you don't have
to like anybody...
Jane:
That came
from a new place in me.
That's when I realized
that anyone can change
and become fierce.
(theme song playing)
Julian Pettifer: Jane Fonda,
you've been taking your public
by surprise recently.
Instead of being pictured
on the beaches of St. Tropez,
you've been pictured
invading Army camps
and getting yourself arrested.
From where I am, it looks
like a different Jane Fonda.
Oh, I think you're right.
I think I am different.
Roger Vadim is French,
a director of motion pictures,
and the husband
of Jane Fonda.
Ms. Fonda is quite active
in the peace movement,
the civil rights field, efforts
to aid Mexican-Americans,
American-Indians,
and dissident soldiers.
Vadim says, "Ms. Fonda is
happy, very happy.
"But said she decided,"
as he put it,
"To take on the sins
of her country, she has lost
her sense of humor."
As a case in point,
he reported that one day,
recently, he called her
"Jane of Arc."
He says,
she didn't laugh at all.
Jane:
I knew that I was gonna
have to leave Vadim,
and that whole
hedonistic relationship.
And I think it was
deeply confusing for him
to have a wife
that he cared for
leave him--
not for another man,
but for an idea.
Nathalie:
She tends to
move on from things.
You know, you don't
really realize how you affect
people when you do that.
It's like, "Oh, okay,
now I'm done with this,
therefore I'm gonna make
new friends, and it's gonna
be a new life."
You know,
and we got left behind.
Jane:
I came back from France
and I moved
into my father's house.
And I began to...
become an activist.
And my father could look
from the upstairs window
down onto the courtyard
and see
the leadership of the
Black Panther Party
going in and out,
and he said to me,
"If I find out
you are a Communist,
I'm gonna turn you in!"
And I remember
running to my room,
I was still living with him,
and just pulling the covers
over my head.
It came out of a fear,
for me
I understand that now,
but it was so hurtful then.
If you were good young people,
you would be fitting yourself
into a scenario that has
been laid out for all of us,
a nice, set scenario to fit us
into the American way of life.
And it says that you
must conduct yourselves
in the manner that meets
the approval and standards
of the people in power.
It's called
making it on your own.
Well, come on,
all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam
needs your help again
Got himself
in a terrible jam
Way down yonder
in Viet-nam
Put down your books
and pick up a g*n
We're gonna
have a whole lotta fun
And it's one, two, three,
what are we fighting for?
Jane: There was so much
catching up to do
about Vietnam
and about Native Americans
and about what was happening
to black people,
the Black Panthers.
How could I have reached
the age of 32
in such ignorance?
I felt so guilty,
and I just felt like
I had to, kind of,
all of a sudden become
an overnight...
righteous activist.
Well, there ain't no time
to wonder why
Whoopee,
we're all gonna die
-All right!
-(crowd cheering)
Country Joe McDonald:
It's generally
acknowledged that
new people who join the movement
become zealots.
You know, they're
like converts, you know.
And I think
that Jane is convinced
that she is going to stop
the w*r in Vietnam,
and that she knows
what is best
and how to do it.
Jane:
I think people felt
very suspicious
about my motives.
I would've
if I'd been somebody else.
"You are a rich movie star.
Why do you care? Why are you...
"involving yourself in this?
And how can I be sure
that you're for real?"
I didn't quite know
what I was doing,
or how to make
proper use of my celebrity.
So much had happened
so quickly.
I was alternately
bulimic and anorexic.
I would, maybe, eat
one soft-boiled egg
and spinach a day, period.
I took Dexedrine,
which is speed.
So I was really speedy,
and I was starving,
along with, like,
getting all of this new...
information coming in
at a very rapid pace.
We here today, together
with the multitudes
across the country
that are joined together
in massive protest,
are showing to Richard Nixon
that his advisers...
that the silent majority
is dead.
(applause)
Jane: I mean,
I'm high-strung anyway,
but me on Dexedrine,
without eating
and feeling like I have
to say everything all at once,
it's like...
I'm amazed that anybody
could receive what I was saying.
It was like,
"Wow, who is this woman?"
The winner is Jane Fonda
for Klute.
(applause)
Jane: My head was
not in Hollywood.
I didn't think very much
about my career anymore.
It wasn't where I was at.
I wasn't some
privileged person
kind of doling out money
and then going about my life.
It was full-time,
on-the-ground activism.
I was on the road
all the time.
I was identified with
different movements,
and my life
was very complicated
and very, very busy,
and intense.
I do have a tendency
to kind of go full bore,
200 percent,
for better or worse.
It felt like a betrayal
to Vanessa.
One night, I laid her
on a towel on the floor
to change her diapers,
and she looked very deep
into my eyes,
and I could tell
that she was saying,
"Where are you?
"Where are you?
"Why don't you show up?"
That's what I felt.
And I had to look away.
Isn't that awful?
I was kinda in over my head.
I desperately
needed structure,
I desperately
needed guidance,
and, uh,
I had always turned
to men for that.
Tom Hayden:
We must be unified,
must be invincible,
must be strong,
must find solidarity,
must struggle,
must have a program,
and must be the rock
on which this attempt
to impose fascism is shattered.
(crowd cheering)
Jane:
I was downtown
at some theater,
and this guy shows up...
Tom Hayden.
Hayden:
We connected
a little bit,
and, uh, I could tell
that something
was going on between us.
Jane:
He was a movement hero.
I was extremely intimidated.
I thought, "Oh, there's
just something so impish."
He had a twinkle in his eye.
He put his hand on my knee,
and I felt this electric shock
go through my body,
and I came home, and I said--
I had a roommate at the time,
Ruby, and I said to her,
"I think that I've met the man
that I'm gonna marry next."
He had been part
of the formation
of the New Left.
He had been
one of the Chicago 7.
He was cofounder of SDS.
I was already an activist
when Tom came along.
But he had such experience,
he knew
how to help me
go down that path,
better and smarter and deeper.
Hayden: I had been
in the peace movement
for a long time.
But the first
SDS national demonstration,
the largest
in American history,
was in 1965.
It was 25,000 people,
that would grow by 20-fold
in just a few years,
and Jane was involved
in all of that.
She had a role
in helping with the,
uh, GI coffee houses
to share information
with the soldiers
about their options.
"Where exactly is Vietnam?
What exactly could
happen to me?"
That sort of thing
was very real.
She suggested
that she hadn't been thinking,
and that her recommendation
was to think.
And they did.
It spread to campuses,
where, eventually,
many thousands
of young men resisted.
I was drawn
by her transformation
from a Hollywood star
to a political star.
d*ck Cavett: It's not often
that a movie star also gets
involved in anything
that might irritate people,
and my next guest has
certainly taken that chance
and done it to the hilt.
She, as I'm sure you know,
recently returned from
a trip to North Vietnam.
Will you welcome, please,
Jane Fonda.
(applause)
You really got pasted this time
by the press and others
when you came back,
as you obviously know.
Would you have done
anything differently
if you had it to do
over again?
Jane:
It's a surreal thing
to live through--
what I experienced
in the two weeks that I was
in North Vietnam.
Flying from Nam Pen
to Hanoi,
I look out the window,
and I can see
American planes bombing.
Nixon was bringing
ground troops home,
and he was saying
that he was ending the w*r,
when, in fact,
it wasn't ending.
It was escalating in terms
of bombing of North Vietnam.
Jane: We began to get
communiqus saying,
this is really serious.
It looks like American planes
are targeting
the dikes of North Vietnam
right before the monsoon season.
If the dikes are weakened
and give way,
a million people could drown
or die from starvation.
I'm always interested,
first, in the mechanics of how
somebody gets to North Vietnam.
A lot of people say, well,
you know, "How come you
got to go,
and how do you feel
that you have a right
to speak about the w*r?"
And I have no more right
than anyone else, you know?
Two years ago,
I didn't even know
where Vietnam was.
Why on earth would she conceive
of the idea of going alone...
to Hanoi?
Would she have gone to Berlin
during the middle
of the Anschluss?
She was, maybe,
as some would say, searching
for something in herself,
testing herself.
"How brave am I?
Am I not just
a flibbertigibbet
on the screen?"
We might need psychiatry
to help us with the answer
to this.
(laughs) I'm not sure.
It's either brave or foolish,
and I think it partook of both.
Lesley Stahl:
Were you trying to get
the soldiers
to disobey
their orders?
No, I-I...
I knew that you cannot
ask a soldier to disobey orders.
You're not the one that pays
the consequences.
Well, you said,
this is direct quotes,
"I beg you to consider
what you are doing.
"The hospitals are filled
with babies and women
and old people.
Can you justify
what you are doing?"
Doesn't that sound
like you're asking them
to stop what they're doing?
I'm asking them to consider it.
Cavett:
And then, in your trip,
you were photographed
behind an aerial g*n
of the, uh, North Vietnamese,
if not the Vietcong,
I'm not sure. That seemed
a bit tactless.
What were you doing
behind an enemy g*n?
I didn't think, at the time,
about how it would be,
uh, received.
And I can understand
why people were
very confused by that.
The soldiers received me there
and sang me a song.
It was very moving to me
because they were expressing
the same sentiments
that American GIs
expressed to me.
And I was applauding
their song
and this was what was shown
on American television.
Cavett:
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I wondered
how you got there.
Jane: I'm--I'm naive
and I make mistakes, but...
it was my fault
that I sat there.
The image of Jane Fonda,
Barbarella,
Henry Fonda's daughter
sitting on an enemy aircraft g*n
was a betrayal.
It was like I was thumbing
my nose at the military
and at-- at the country
that gave me privilege.
As I've said many times,
I will go to my grave
regretting that.
Hayden:
I wasn't there.
I might have stopped it.
I would not have advised it,
but you can't stop the media.
And so you took this picture
and of course it went viral.
I thought it was a problem
of the celebrity spotlight,
when you're used by the media,
and blown up by the media,
you will make a mistake
in the media.
(reporters clamoring)
Newsman: The Justice
Department said it is
attempting to determine
whether Ms. Fonda
had violated
sedition, treason
or other statutes.
Howard Smith:
Distrust movie actors
with causes.
They live in so rarefied
an atmosphere of celebrity
that they have no conception
of the ambiguity of right
and wrong in real life.
Jane: They needed
a very visible person
who represented
the peace movement
to do something
really terrible,
and that was me.
(crowd cheering)
Man 1:
The petition we're circulating
asks the Justice Department
to prosecute Jane Fonda
to the fullest extent
of the law
for giving aid and comfort
to the enemy.
Man 2: Jane Fonda's
an outrageous liar.
She's a hypocrite and a liar.
Man 3: She's the most
despicable woman
in the United States.
Man 4: There are
other people in films,
too, that we don't ask
for advice, such as
Mickey Mouse or Lassie.
Woman: I don't think
she should've done
the things that she's done
and said about our country
and come back and lived
in the country.
Fletcher Thompson:
I don't care if she's
a tender, young female,
a famous movie star,
that is treason.
It's under active investigation.
They have not yet made
a decision as to whether
to prosecute or not prosecute.
Jane:
And of course,
they found nothing,
so the charges of treason
have been dropped.
And they don't understand
that I... I came back here
because I love America.
The democratic ideals upon
which our country is founded
is-- are being betrayed.
-We have an obligation
to resist this.
-Cavett: I'm sorry, Jane.
I'm disturbed
by your difference between
your content and your style.
Cavett:
I've always liked Jane,
and I always admired
her guts,
but I worried about her.
She was, to use the mildest
possible word, hated.
Hayden:
I mean, you had people
in legislatures arguing
that she should have
her tongue cut out and that
she should be hung and so on.
I think, also,
part of it was that
she was very effective.
So, she had to be
quickly stereotyped
and-- and gotten rid of.
It was McCarthyism
recycled under Nixon,
and they just tried to smear
her reputation over and over.
They would have k*lled her
if they could.
Nixon, of course, had already
advocated bombing the dikes.
One reason he did not
is that Jane Fonda was brave
enough to stand on those dikes
and denounce
what would happen
to hundred of thousands
of peasants if the dikes
were bombed.
She was willing to be
attacked over that.
Abbie Hoffman:
I consider Jane Fonda
one of the--
the most courageous women
of our time, probably
the most courageous...
-(scattered applause)
-...she made a conversion
from a life that was so sterile
and easy to live
into a life that's filled
with harassment and ridicule
and requires real courage.
Jane:
I'm proud
of most of what I did,
and I'm very sorry
for some of what I did.
In Hanoi, I had met
a number of POWs,
and we talked,
about the World Series,
primarily, and about
some of their experiences.
But when the POWs
came home,
certain POWs were handpicked
to travel around the country
talking about t*rture.
If Ms. Fonda thinks
for a minute
that any of the people
that she saw were able
to speak freely,
she's got
another thing coming.
I think coerced
is a very mild word.
I'd use the word tortured,
initially.
I think they're lying,
and I think they're not only
going to have to live
with the fact that they were
carrying out acts of m*rder
for the rest of their lives,
they're also going to have
to live with the fact
that they're lying
on their consciousness...
Jane:
t*rture of POWs had ended
in North Vietnam in 1969.
Three years before I went there.
Man:
This court finds you guilty
of the crime of high treason
against the United States.
(crowd cheers)
Cavett:
Jane gave as good as she got
when she was... attacked.
But Jane had a way
of making things worse
for herself.
Never before
in the history of warfare
have prisoners of w*r
come back looking
like football players.
Never in the history of w*r
have men come back
and been able
to come off planes,
saluting smartly
and hug their wives.
And we should try
to help each other
understand
why these men
are being used this way.
Not do ourselves and them
the disservice of making them
into heroes.
Why not the legless
and armless vets who have
come back to welfare?
Why not all those men
who died over there
on the ground--
-(woman shouting)
-(gavel pounding)
-Why aren't they heroes?
-(gavel pounding)
You're a gutless
little traitor!
(cheering and applauding)
(man continues shouting)
Jane:
I was so angry
that Nixon
used freeing the POWS
and bringing them home
as a justification
for continuing the w*r and
carpet-bombing North Vietnam.
I have no idea what it
must be like to be a POW.
I do know that they were used
by the government.
(protesters chanting)
Jane: It was a very...
tumultuous and polarized time.
There was a lot of
anger and blame,
and for myself, I really,
I didn't know
always how to channel
my anger in constructive ways.
I k*lled a lot of people,
and I live with
a lot of nightmares!
And then I got shot
in this country's w*r.
Jane:
I heard Ron Kovic speak
at a very big rally
of a couple thousand people.
He was paralyzed
during the Vietnam w*r,
and he became an activist
with the GI Movement.
He said,
"I've lost my body, yeah,
but I've gained my mind."
And I thought, I could
build a movie around that.
Once I was a soldier
You're a mess.
Were you wounded in 'Nam?
Right.
When did it happen?
A long time ago.
My husband
just went over there.
(laughs)
Poor b*stard.
Once I was a lover
Jane:
The studios didn't want
to make a film about the w*r.
It took six years until
we finally could get it made.
I had been working
with returned veterans from
Vietnam for several years.
It was a story
about coming home
after being through
what they had been through.
If it's over with us,
it's over!
Well, what are you saying?
That you're not even gonna
make the effort?
(screaming):
What I'm saying is...
-I don't belong in this house!
-Please--
And they're saying
that I don't belong over there!
Luke Martin: You know,
you wanna be a part of
it and patriotic,
and go out and...
get your licks in
at the US of A, and...
and... when you get over there,
it's a totally
different situation.
I mean...
(sighs)
...you grow up real quick,
because all you're
seeing is, um,
a lot of death.
Jane:
There were soldiers
who came back feeling
that they should
never have gone.
There were also men,
even though they
were physically damaged,
who came back
still staunch believers.
I feel...
just as compassionate
for them as I do
for the other soldiers.
To men who were,
in Vietnam, who...
who I hurt
or whose pain I caused to--
to deepen because of things
that I said or I did, uh...
I-I feel that I owe them
an apology.
My intentions were never
to hurt them or make
their situation worse.
It was... It was the contrary.
I was trying to help
end the k*lling, end the w*r.
But there were times
when I was thoughtless
and careless about it,
and I'm-- and I am...
very sorry that I hurt them,
and I want to apologize to them
and to their families.
Jane:
During the time that it took
to make Coming Home,
I was making other movies.
But a lot of that time,
I was on the road with Tom.
Tom said,
"We have to go
to the grassroots.
"We have to speak
to the silent majority.
"Let's do a 60-city tour,
over three months,
across the United States."
And within weeks, we created
the Indochina Peace Campaign.
We would sleep
in people's houses,
you know, waterbeds.
Sometimes, we were both sq--
in a twin bed.
And it was in a motor home,
driving toward Buffalo,
when I became impregnated
with Troy.
I remember we called
Tom's mother, Jean,
who lived in Detroit,
and she said,
"You know, you're gonna
have to get married."
We thought that was bourgeois.
And she said, "You know,
what are you gonna do when you
go on The Johnny Carson Show
"and you wanna talk
about Vietnam, and
they wanna talk about
"how come you're having a kid
and you're not married,"
and that made sense.
(whispering):
I really wanted to get married,
to tell you the truth.
Hayden:
We got a g*y
Episcopal priest,
who I think was thrown
out of the order for
having married us,
and, uh, life went on.
Jane: With Troy,
we didn't want him to have
his father's name
just automatically,
or Fonda.
You know, we wanted him
to have a name that didn't
have so much baggage.
So we named him
Troy O'Donovan Garity.
Troy Garity:
My parents made
a conscious decision to...
try to live as...
normally as possible.
I know that that sounds insane
because they are abnormal.
-(applause)
-Ah! The winner is Jane Fonda
in Coming Home !
(cheering)
Garity:
We went to the Oscars
in a station wagon.
My father wore like a--
the ugliest suit in the world.
I wore a T-shirt
with a hand-screened
tuxedo thing on it.
(dog whines)
It wasn't
a normal family unit.
Like we weren't,
you know, vacationing
in tropical paradises.
You know, we holidayed
in conflict zones.
I was potty-trained
in a Vietnam b*mb shelter.
I just got dragged with them.
Being in an IRA, you know,
stronghold in Belfast,
and a boy comes in
with his thumb blown off,
and my father dips the rag
in his blood and's like,
"This is your blood.
This is your f*cking blood.
This is your people."
I'm five.
My first 13 birthday parties
were fundraisers. (chuckles)
Anything
that represented, like,
wealth or establishment
was looked on with
a lot of skepticism.
"If my coworker
can't have a pool,
"then I'm not having
a f*cking pool.
I'd rather take
that money give it to the
United Farm Workers Fund."
You know, the house I was
raised in, there was another
family living...
in the house with us.
Uh, at times, we had
organizers sleeping
on the porch.
There was a homeless person
that slept under the house.
I would come home sometimes
and he would be dressed in...
in my parents' clothes. Yeah.
Jane:
They were one house
right next to the other.
Nightwatchman on one side
and a Marxist writer
on the other.
And we lived in this house
that was-- my dad called it
a shack.
We had furniture
from Salvation Army.
We had no dishwasher,
we had no washing machine.
It was...
I was very happy,
and I was very proud of myself.
I wanted to show Tom
that I could do it.
I didn't want him to think
that I was... spoiled.
Hayden:
We were intensely in love,
pursuing common life goals.
The neighborhood was swollen
with activists, of all kinds.
Paula Weinstein:
It was a really, tiny, little
version of-- of a commune.
I would be invited
all the time to come
for dinner
and there was no dinner.
And I was like,
"I don't understand,
what happened to dinner?"
It was espresso.
Jane's not a cook.
We would get in our
little Volkswagen Bug,
and go to the local
pizzeria and...
it was wonderful.
But when you combine
the fever of celebrity
with the furor of...
anti-w*r, um, activities,
um, there was a lot of heat
around our home.
Jane:
I will never forget the day
that we came home,
there wasn't a drawer
in the house
that wasn't pulled
out and turned over.
Everything was torn
out of the closets.
Papers were rifled,
desks were open.
I mean, someone had gone
through our house.
And it was done so blatantly,
and mess--
I mean, I knew that it was...
to scare us.
I was aware
that I was being followed,
and there was very little
attempt to disguise it.
There would be these
guys in trench coats
with dark glasses. (chuckles)
The FBI would follow
Vanessa to school.
The more I saw them
the more my attitude was,
"You think
I'm gonna back down?"
I mean, that's one thing,
you know,
every time people think
they're gonna scare me,
then that's the wrong way
to approach it.
Because, no.
I saw, with Tom,
what it meant
to build a movement,
what organizing meant.
He realized that what needed
to be focused on
was moving power out
of the hands of the super rich
and the corporations,
into the hands of people,
the way it should be
in a democracy.
So, the Campaign for
Economic Democracy evolved.
We knew that we wanted
to spread a message
throughout the country.
It was difficult
because we had to raise
so much money,
and it was during
a recession.
So Tom and I talked
about this and we thought,
"Well, let's start a business
that will fund the work."
We talked about...
"Maybe a restaurant."
That would have been a disaster.
Then we thought,
"Maybe a car wash
that doesn't rip people off."
Well, that-- You know,
I mean, we had no idea.
And then one day,
I suddenly thought... (gasps)
"The Workout.
If there's one thing
I understand, it's working out."
-(up-tempo music playing)
-(woman cheers)
Jane:
One camera.
There were no teleprompters
or anything like that.
I wrote the script sitting
on a floor of a hotel room.
We did our own hair
and makeup.
I mean, it was
a spit and a prayer.
And the rest is history.
That video came out,
and almost overnight
became and remains
the number one
home video of all-time.
Are you ready to do the workout?
And it was owned
by the Campaign for
Economic Democracy.
The organization owned it,
not me,
and all the profits
went into the organization.
Right, two.
And back, two.
It sold 17 million copies.
A video industry developed,
because everyone wanted
to buy my video and use it
over and over and over.
I'm the first
non-engineer
to be inducted into
the Video Hall of Fame.
You know, they credited me
for building the video industry.
It was a pretty interesting
time for me
because people recognized me
in a whole different way.
Women would come up to me
and say, you know, "I don't
need sleeping pills anymore."
Another one would talk
about how she felt different,
she felt stronger.
It's funny,
when I thought about it,
that was true for me.
You know, I had suffered
from an eating disorder
for a long time.
Nobody knew. You know,
one of the things about bulimia
is that it's a...
it's a disease of denial.
You know, it takes
a lot of subterfuge.
You're very tired,
and you're very angry,
and you're very self-hating.
And I realized,
I'm heading into
a really dark place,
and I'm-- I either am gonna
head to the light
or I'm gonna succumb
to the dark,
and it's a life or death thing.
I went cold turkey.
It was really, really hard.
There was something
about taking control
of my body, in that way,
that got me
over the addiction.
It changed my perception
of myself.
I think it was
Thomas Jefferson who said,
"Revolution begins
in the muscles."
And it was
a revolution for me,
but it was
completely unintentional,
you know, I did the workout
to fund the organization.
It was for Tom.
Weinstein:
They formed a team
around politics,
and around the children.
But she didn't have
as much confidence
as I think
she should've in those days,
And Tom is so compelling
that he's a hard force
to argue with.
Jane: You know, here is
a man who was considered
an intellectual,
he was considered
a star in the movement,
and he'd written--
I don't remember how
many books he'd written.
And then I write
Jane Fonda's Workout Book,
and it becomes the number one
on the New York Times
for two years.
Two solid years.
The Workout Book ?
(scoffs)
I mean, if I was him,
I would have had
a certain degree of resentment.
He thought
I was superficial.
That I wasn't smart enough.
But I was producing
my own movies,
the kind of movies
that say the things
that I think need saying.
Hello, this is Kimberly Wells,
and I'm here at the Ventana
Nuclear Power Plant,
owned and operated by
California Gas & Electric.
Jane:
China Syndrome was the story
of a cover-up
at a nuclear power plant.
(alarms buzzing, beeping)
This is Jack Godell.
We have a serious condition.
You get everybody
into safety areas and make sure
that they stay there.
-(alarm bells ringing)
-Radiation in containment!
Jane: We were
very much attacked for,
for making it, the movie.
But then, the movie came out
and two weeks later,
Three Mile Island happened.
Man (over loudspeaker):
All pregnant women
and preschool children
should evacuate
out of a five-mile radius...
Newswoman:
The China Syndrome
has given Jane Fonda
a new standing
in American society.
She's now a heroine
in her own right.
She's the Cassandra
of the Nuclear Holocaust.
Jane:
It's shocking that people
from this area
had to go to see
The China Syndrome
in order to try to understand
what was happening to them.
Redford: Jane has always
had an impulse to go
right for the heart of things.
We were aligned in the same way
that things were not right.
The question was
how we were gonna go about it,
and I felt, if I spoke out,
that there would be
a lot of resentment.
That didn't mean you couldn't
do it that way, and that's
the choice that Jane made.
And it had a lot of strength
and a lot of power to it.
She made a lot of enemies,
but that's gonna happen
when you step up and speak
on the national stage.
What I admire about her
is that she did it
and she didn't look back,
she didn't change her tone
or her voice.
She said,
"This is what I believe,
"this is what I feel, and this
is what I'm gonna say."
Tumble outta bed
and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself
a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch
and try to come to life
Jane:
Forty million women
work in offices,
and for the first time
in history, they're
beginning to organize,
they're beginning to say,
"We deserve respect, we deserve
equal pay for equal work."
Workin' 9 to 5
What a way...
Lily Tomlin:
Jane is always looking for
what's the most important
current issue to deal with,
and 9 to 5 was her invention.
She decided to do a movie
about the 9-to-5 women.
Well, look, couldn't
we just all get together
and... and complain?
Complain to who?
Let's face it, we are
in a pink-collared ghetto.
Let's have another drink.
Jane:
We all knew we were doing
something that was important
for women office workers,
because we dealt with
all the issues:
sexual harassment,
unequal pay...
...the importance
of flex hours,
the importance of childcare,
all these things.
Garity:
My mom was using film
as a platform to
try to affect change.
My parents
were really doing it.
They were
boots-on-the-ground,
dedicated mission,
"We're going forward."
That's where their
heads were at.
My parents walked the walk,
for sure.
They bought these hundred acres
on top of this mountain
in Santa Barbara
and started a summer camp.
I mean,
it was every walk of life.
Children of farm workers,
the children of
the heads of studios,
the children
of Black Panthers.
Weinstein:
Laurel Springs was
really a fantasy
that they, together,
made a reality.
If you're a true
movement person,
you understand about
passing it along,
and watering the fields,
and making the seeds grow.
Garity:
We were all on this
mountaintop together
and we were forced to coexist.
And it was at Laurel Springs
that I met Lulu.
Jane:
Lulu, when she first came
to camp, she was maybe 12.
And she was... giggly,
and bright, and...
funny, with this
wonderful laugh and
everyone just adored her.
She came two summers,
and then she disappeared.
And when she came back,
she was a different person.
She had been
sexually abused repeatedly
by an acting coach.
She was shut down.
Her life was dysfunctional,
disorganized.
Her parents had
been Black Panthers.
Her father was in jail.
She was failing in school.
It was like the flame
had gotten real tiny, but it
was still there, you could see.
And I said, "I'll tell you
what, Lulu,
"if you bring your
grades up to a B,
"I'll bring you to Los Angeles,
to Santa Monica, where we live,
"and... you can live with us
and go to school down there,
if your mother
lets that happen."
And that's
what happened.
Lulu Williams:
She didn't even say,
"I want to adopt you
or I want you to be
my daughter." It was
just-- it just kinda
evolved into that,
'cause it really just was
"I want to help this child."
So when I came, I just started
living in their house, and then
it became, you know,
I was just another kid
in the house.
Garity:
It all goes back
to my mother's childhood.
I think her light was
almost put out...
when she was a child.
So, I think she likes to find
people who are in danger of
losing theirs, and re-- and...
and rekindle it.
No, my mom was...
not orphaned,
but pretty damn close.
(birds twittering)
Jane:
I had always wanted to do
a movie with my dad,
and this play seemed like
a perfect thing.
Garity:
She bought On Golden Pond
for them,
she produced it,
she made it for him,
to... have a deeper
shared experience with him,
before they couldn't anymore.
Hayden: It was about
the reconciliation
of a hard dad,
and a emotional daughter.
It was more than a script,
it was an opportunity for love
and reconciliation.
Hello, Norman.
-Oh, look at you.
-Happy birthday.
Look at this
little fat girl, Ethel.
(chuckles)
Oh, Norman!
-You're as thin as a rail.
Isn't she?
-Sure...
Jane: Katherine Hepburn
and my father played
my parents,
and I was extremely
intimidated.
The parallels were very,
very close between
the characters, and-- and...
my father and I in real life.
But we never spoke of it.
We never spoke about anything
like that, ever.
Hayden:
There was a great deal of
invisible healing going on.
For Jane, it was
the ultimate catharsis.
Jane:
In the movie, the main scene
between Chelsea and her father
was a scene that, whenever
I would read it and during
every single rehearsal,
I would become
very, very, very emotional,
because it was
so very close to home.
I wanna talk to you. I, um...
I think that, um,
maybe you and I should have
the kind of relationship
that we're supposed to have.
What kind of
a relationship is that?
Well, you know, like a...
like a father and a daughter.
Eh, just in the nick
of time, huh?
Worried about the will, are you?
Well, I'm leaving
everything to you,
except what I'm taking
with me.
Just stop it.
I don't want anything.
It just-- it seems that
you and me have been mad
at each other for so long.
I didn't know we were mad.
I thought we just
didn't like each other
Jane:
Knowing that my father
doesn't like
to have anything that's
not rehearsed,
everything has to be rehearsed
down to the nth degree,
I decide to save one thing
that I'm gonna do when I think
it's his last close-up,
because I want him...
to do something unplanned.
I don't know what it--
how he would react,
but it will be emotional.
I-- I wanna be your friend.
Jane: I reached out
and I touched his arm.
Does this mean you'll...
come around more often?
It'd mean
a lot to your mother.
And he put his hand up,
but I saw...
the tears in his eyes...
and, you know, it just--
it meant the world to me.
Hayden: He loved her.
That he couldn't express
it in three words
is a kind of tragedy.
But in his eyes and in his
face, he still expressed it.
And the winner is...
Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond.
(cheering)
Oh, Dad, I'm so happy,
and proud, for you.
(applause)
Garity:
On Golden Pond isn't a movie.
It's a vehicle to try to make
her family closer.
Perhaps because she felt
other parts of her family...
were in limbo.
You know, my sister definitely
had a harder time
relating with my mother
than I have.
Hayden:
I remember coming back
from the hospital,
with newborn Troy,
and Vanessa,
happily staring at him.
But it was also apparent
that he was the different one.
He was the prince.
Jane:
Vanessa saw me
taking Troy with me,
as I had not taken her.
And she saw me living
with Troy's father...
which was not her situation.
And I can't imagine that
it wasn't difficult for her.
Weinstein: The thing
about Jane is, she had
to learn how to be a mother...
because that isn't what she
experienced. She experienced,
"Come down and say good night
to the guests,
and go back upstairs and be
your perfect little selves."
And even thought her mother was
loving, she was clearly sad.
She must've, as a child,
really felt that sadness,
you know, it had its effect.
She's not a natural caretaker.
She had no training
for emotional intelligence,
at all.
Garity:
My mother didn't have
a good example of what
a healthy relationship
looked like,
neither did my father.
Jane:
Neither one of us were big
on talking about our feelings.
Our lives became more and more
like... on two separate tracks.
Tom once said,
"If Jane and I find
ourselves together,
it was a mistake
in scheduling."
I think that in the end,
neither one of us were happy.
Hayden:
Living with a public figure,
who has, uh,
movie studios and-- and
public relations firms working
night and day to make her
larger than life, uh,
it is-- it becomes artificial.
The house becomes a prop,
suddenly, uh, the bedroom
could become a prop,
the children are props.
Where's life?
(people cheering)
She felt the call of Hollywood.
That was very jarring to me.
I was drinking and womanizing.
I wasn't ready to be
the husband of somebody
that was preoccupied
with being an actress.
Weinstein:
He was very rough on her.
I think she was very lonely.
It was a vulnerability she
couldn't allow in and I think
a truth she couldn't allow in.
So I think she would've
gone on accepting that.
He fell in love with somebody...
um... and I found out.
It did knock the foundation
out from under me because...
I just never could have
imagined life without Tom.
If I'm not with Tom Hayden,
then I'm nobody.
Weinstein:
Here she was alone at a
critical moment for an actress.
when you're still beautiful,
and sexy, and everything,
but the guys don't want
to play with you anymore.
When Redford was making
the movie Legal Eagles
and Debra Winger got cast,
and Jane didn't,
she went, "Oh my God,
it's happened.
"Redford isn't fighting for me,
or the studio doesn't want me,
they want the new,
fabulous young star."
Jane:
It was a very difficult time.
Just dark... and painful.
And then, a friend of mine
gave me the name
of this unbelievable psychic...
who...
predicted...
things-- I mean,
down to the minutiae.
She said to me, "I see money.
I see so much money."
And then she said,
"And I see land...
as far as I can see."
Of course,
it was Ted Turner.
Reporter:
The words used most often
to describe
Robert Edward Turner III
are controversial,
rash,
flamboyant,
controversial,
ambitious,
competitive,
-and controversial.
- (applause)
You bet your bippy.
Ted Turner:
The best advice
is never do anything.
You'll never get in trouble
if you don't do anything.
But on the other hand, you'll
never get anywhere either...
you know.
Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.
Jane:
The day after...
my divorce from Tom Hayden
was announced, the phone rang,
and this booming
Southern accent,
he said, "Would you want to
go out with me?"
And I said, "Well, I'm having
a nervous breakdown.
Call me in six months."
And six months to the day,
Ted asked me out again.
Ted was a genius,
billionaire,
entrepreneur,
but he was also gorgeous.
I mean, he was really a handsome
man, and very, very sexy.
On the first date...
the way...
he looked at me...
I felt like I was being eaten.
He was devouring me,
and I got goosebumps
all over me.
Then he said, "You know,
I don't know much about you,
"so I went into CNN
and I pulled your archives.
There was a stack
about that high."
Then he said, "Then I went
and I pulled my archives.
And mine are this high.
Mine are bigger than yours."
I mean, by the time we got to
the restaurant, which was only
15 minutes away,
I felt like a tsunami
had rolled over me.
When he took me back,
at the door he said,
"Can I hug you?"
And he hugged me, and he said,
"I-- I'm-- I have to tell you
that I'm smitten"
In his heart,
Ted is not a wealthy, powerful,
privileged person.
He's a little boy
who likes to play,
and who has wild brilliance,
and that's what
I was attracted to.
Weinstein:
Ted adored her.
He'd never put her down.
Ted is f*cking great.
I pronounce you, now,
man and wife.
You may kiss the bride.
(clapping)
(laughter)
All right!
Weinstein:
Their wedding was hilarious,
just hilarious.
It's the only wedding after
which we all mounted horses
and went grouse sh**ting
Jane:
I'll never forget here on
our second date in Montana.
I remember driving around and
he looked out of the window
of the Jeep at a bird that was--
you could see it in silhouette,
and he said what it was,
and he told me the
nesting patterns of the bird.
And I thought,
"I could love this man."
It was so clear...
that he... had a connection
to the land,
and to the critters,
and-- and...
(whispering):
...so do I.
I grew up in the
Santa Monica mountains,
and I knew
all the little animals,
and the bugs, and the skunks,
and the coyotes,
and I loved them.
The household wasn't very happy,
so that's where
I found happiness.
We were both children
of suicide,
so we understood each other.
Like me, he had found solace
in nature.
We would ride every day,
sometimes three, four,
five hours.
And hiking, and fly-fishing.
You know, we had adventures.
Jane, am I correct that
you've given up making movies?
Oh yeah. When I met...
Ted, I was thinking about
doing it anyway,
but when I met Ted,
that clenched it.
She'd begun the marriage
by saying to Ted,
"I'll give up work,
but you give up girls."
You mean ranching can
take the place of all the
excitement of doing the movies?
Ted can.
(indistinct chatter)
Is that from you, Jeff?
Turner:
Gee, that cost a fortune!
(lively chattering)
Williams:
I thought that would
be a disaster,
with our liberal,
crunchy granola,
leftist kids
coming into his family.
And it melded amazingly well.
I learned a lot...
with the men in my life,
but I learned the most with Ted.
His vision was macro,
and I'm micro.
So we were a great partnership.
Weinstein:
It was...
a stunningly,
interesting marriage.
Because they shared
a view of the world,
an internationalism,
a curiosity.
And it was great to be
out of Hollywood in that
dismal period
where she'd be
looking for gigs.
It was fun.
But, you know, in the end,
it didn't last.
Jane:
Hi, Marta.
I'm good, I'm in a car
heading for my favorite
ex-husband's
ranch in Montana.
I think you look great.
-Ha, I don't--
-I think you look great!
You look great, too.
Oh, it is?
Gettin' old is hard,
isn't, man?
Oh, it is.
(birds chirping)
That tree looks great.
Do you ever sit under it
-with your various girlfriends?
-No.
(chuckles)
That's your tree.
It's good to see you.
It's good to see you.
Yeah.
(unintelligible)
Well, we had fun in here.
Can I be bossy for a minute?
Sure.
This isn't a good idea.
Why?
Because you walk into the back
of a whole lot of pictures.
You should turn them,
and some of them
should face this way,
and for-- Oh!
Jane:
We had a wonderful 10 years.
But I had to hide
a part of me,
in order to please him.
He would call me
when I was in L.A.
and he was in Atlanta,
and he would say,
"I'm... shrinking."
When he is removed
from his object of love,
and he's alone,
he actually does feel
like he's getting small.
It's very deep
and very serious.
Ted can't be alone.
And so my whole life
had to be about him.
It was rare that
I could go to a conference.
The women's conference
in Beijing, I had to
really negotiate.
The Cairo conference,
the UN conference on
population and development.
I began an organization called
the Georgia Campaign
for Adolescent
Pregnancy Prevention,
and it was very, very
important to me.
But there was a lot
that I wanted to do
that I couldn't do.
As we moved through the decade
that we spent together...
I became more of a feminist.
And so, my focus
was more and more on...
on women's empowerment.
But it's hard to be a complete
feminist if you're in a marriage
that doesn't quite work.
None of my marriages
were democratic,
because I was
too worried about pleasing.
I had to be a certain way
in order for them to love me.
I had to look a certain way,
and I looked different for
all of them.
I wanted to be living
as a whole Jane,
fully realized Jane.
I hoped that Ted would feel
okay about it, because...
I really loved him,
and I was hoping that it
would be forever.
But that's not the way
it played out.
Susan Lacy:
When you and Jane parted,
how did that affect you?
It was...
very difficult. I...
thought it was a...
(sighs)
...a mistake.
I've survived, and so has she.
But, uh...
I feel like I was happier
when I was with her than...
subsequently.
Jane:
When you reside
within your own skin,
you-- you can feel it.
You're holding...
all of you:
your anger,
your kindness
your judgmentalness.
Everything that makes up
what you are,
including the fact that
you may be stronger and braver
than the man you're married to.
When the time came
that I said to him, "Ted,
this isn't gonna work...
"unless there are changes,"
we were in a car, and...
all the oxygen left the car,
and I knew...
it's not gonna happen.
It was awful.
And...
I could hear a voice saying,
"Oh God, Fonda, come on.
He's handsome, he's cute,
"he's sexy. You know you
never have to work again.
Lighten up. Come on."
And over here, there was
a softer little voice saying,
"If you stay...
"you will never... be authentic,
"you will never
be able to be whole."
(distant blender whirring)
Dina, I burnt out my blender.
Jane:
After Ted Turner,
everything was so...
wildly quiet.
It was probably
the most profound turning point
of my life.
I left this man...
and one part of me was so sad,
and the other part of me said,
"I'm gonna be okay.
I don't need a man
to make me okay."
That-- that was it,
and I never went back.
Jane:
The problem is you don't
understand the problem.
It's not personal.
I'm still being treated the way
I was for 40 years, and
I'm not gonna settle anymore.
Can't you see how disrespectful
you were being?
I might, I will, I am.
Yes, we've talked about it.
Doing? Doing?
I'll tell you what we're doing,
we're-- we're-- we're--
we're making vibrators
for women with arthritis.
Okay. God...
Seventy-eight years old,
I have a scene in bed
with Sam Elliot.
Pretty good, huh?
It was fun, too.
Jane:
Paula Weinstein,
who's my best friend,
she called me and she said,
"The Zanucks who were producing
the Oscars that year
want you to present an award."
And I said, "I can't, I'm not
in the business anymore."
She said, "Shut up,
"Vera Wang's gonna make you
a dress
and Sally Hershberger's
gonna cut your hair."
(applause)
I came out...
I could hear a gasp
from the audience
'cause I looked really good.
And right away,
I got offered Monster-In-Law.
You know, I thought, "Well...
"people are gonna go see it
because of Jennifer Lopez,
"but they're gonna discover,
or rediscover, Jane Fonda."
(air horn blares)
I'm sorry,
I thought it was air freshener.
(laughs maniacally)
Jane, I'm-- I'm telling you,
I couldn't be, uh,
happier for you. I'm a--
This thing has just
been tremendous.
And I would think after this run
of the play, you would like
some time just to relax, but no!
You see, I'm the
brand ambassador for L'Oreal
for older women,
but they never--
nobody's ever had
a brand ambassador my age.
I competed with Margaret Mead,
and what they have me doing...
-(audience laughs)
-...is um, hand cream,
face cream, and embalming oil.
Jane:
I never thought
I'd still be doing this.
If you would have told me,
that I would be my age now,
and still working,
I would have been
totally flabbergasted.
Photographers:
Jane! Jane! Jane!
I'm just kind of amazed
that I have...
managed to recreate a career,
and I'm--
as busy as I am.
God!
-I mean, can't a lady have a--
-Leona!
We don't have the trust
of the public anymore.
Get it back!
I forgot, I forgot
to slow down, I'm sorry.
Jane:
Now, I'm making a movie
with Bob Redford again.
Robert Redford:
She is so busy.
No grass grows under her feet.
She puts me in the shade.
You ready for sushi?
Yes, I am.
Tomlin: Grace and Frankie,
when it came along,
just seemed right.
We can play out
this part of our lives
in a project that speaks
what we wanna speak about.
Older women, older people,
older, uh,
g*y people,
older straight people.
How am I gonna explain to my
kids that their grandma makes
sex toys for other grandmas?
Well, I'll tell you
what to tell them, honey.
You tell them that we
make things for people like us.
Sam Waterston:
She lived her life
in front of us,
and as she's grown older,
she's shown us what that's like.
She's not afraid
to be out there.
We are sick and tired of being
dismissed by people like you.
-Mic drop.
-It's about answering back,
not going quietly
into that great good night.
And then go ahead and lower down
and when you lower down, I want
you to let your knees bend.
Great, and then pull
right back up again.
-So--
-Using my arms?
You could use both so r--
Jane:
I'm glad...
that I look good for my age.
But I've also had plastic
surgery, I'm not gonna lie
about that.
On one level, I hate the fact
that I have had the need...
to alter myself physically
to feel that I'm okay.
(Jane and instructor talking)
I wish that I wasn't...
like that.
I love older faces.
I love lived-in faces.
I love Vanessa Redgrave's face.
I wish I was braver.
But, um...
I am what I am.
Your age is less chronological,
and more spiritual,
and attitudinal.
I was so old at 20.
I mean, maybe people
who knew me then
would have said, "What?!"
But on a soul level,
I was really...
I saw no future.
I was very dark,
very sad person.
There was no joy.
I didn't really know who I was.
It took me a really long time
to find my own narrative.
Weinstein:
Few people move me
as much as she does.
She's gotta fight all her life
her insecurity,
knowing her own value.
And that's a journey
that continues for her.
I think she's gonna have that...
forever, but--
but nobody braver to tackle it.
Jane:
When I watched my dad die,
I felt that he...
had a lot of regrets.
I do not want to get
to the end of life...
with a lot of regrets,
and I know that the regrets
won't be what I did,
they'll be for the things
I didn't do.
This is the beginning
of my last act.
In order to know
how to go forward,
I was gonna have to know
where I'd been.
Let's see.
That's my grandmother.
That's the house
where my dad grew up.
Jane:
If you really go back,
and try to understand
who you've been,
you have to understand
who your parents were.
Why were they not able...
to really look at you
with eyes of love,
reflect yourself back
with eyes of love.
Why did they have duct tape
over their eyes?
Why did narcissism blind them...
from being able
to really see you?
Who were their parents?
Why did their parents...
treat them the way they did?
I began, in 2000,
to write my memoirs.
I dedicated them to my mother,
because I thought it was
gonna force me...
to figure out who she was.
I found out that my mother
was the life of the party.
"Everybody loved being around
your mother!" They did?
"Oh my gosh! Oh, and she was--
I mean, men loved her."
And her father's,
my grandfather's side,
of the family said, "Gasp!
"Oh we all wanted to be close
to your mother.
She was a rock."
I was like, "My mother?"
It was such a...
unlike my image of who she was.
It just stunned me.
All these conflicting stories
came to me and I'd always
sensed that...
(sighs)
...she must have had
a really hard childhood.
And, um...
so with the help of a lawyer,
I got her medical records
from the institution
where she k*lled herself, and...
um...
I found,
from her medical records
that she suffered from
manic depression, that's
what they called it.
It's today called bipolar.
And there was
this little autobiography,
they must have asked her
to write her life story.
What a gift.
Suddenly it's like,
it had nothing to do with me!
It wasn't that
I was not lovable.
It's that things
would happen to her,
she had a very, very
hard childhood, and, um,
it broke her, in some way
on some fundamental way,
it broke her.
Garity:
I think the most defining
moment in my mother's life
was the death of her mother.
Jane:
My mother died in 1950,
and I never had an inclination
to come here.
And at the time,
it's the right time for me
to come and...
and visit her grave.
I finished her life story.
And all I wanted to do
was take her in my arms
and just say, "I'm so sorry.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry
that I wasn't...
"more loving to you,
I didn't know. I'm so sorry
you had to go through that.
Please forgive me."
Their incapacity to love
wasn't because you weren't...
worthy of love, but it was
because they, too,
had been wounded.
And then you can forgive.
It goes from one generation
to another, and...
somebody's got to
break the cycle.
One of the reasons that
I wanted to write my book was
because I wanted my daughter
to know
why I wasn't a better parent
to her
and that it had nothing
to do with her.
I get so sad...
when I think of what I wasn't
for my daughter
that she needed.
And it's hard to take that in
'cause it's so painful,
but it's never
too late, I think.
There are things between
us now that...
didn't used to be there,
and I think we both feel it.
Deep down, we love each other.
I hope that she'll be able
to forgive me.
And I feel lucky
that I have my family,
and my extended family.
I'm now having relationships
that are much more democratic.
But I am most myself
when I'm with my women friends.
Like a lot of people,
I sort of thought that I would
at some point, you know,
kind of retire, and...
but that's not gonna happen.
Reporter:
Actress Jane Fonda traveled
to Standing Rock
to serve Thanksgiving meals
to demonstrators.
This is a battle for,
not just Standing Rock,
but for everyone.
Jane:
It's hard to be really happy if
your life doesn't have meaning.
People turn to religion because
it gives them some meaning,
but I am an activist.
Hey, hey! h*, h*!
Donald Trump has got to go!
But we're in a whole new era.
When there's a catastrophe
that's happened, we have to be
out in the streets.
(protesters chanting)
We don't have to choose between
the environment and the economy.
That is a false choice.
Reporter:
Actresses Jane Fonda
and Lily Tomlin
among several celebrities
joining the protest,
and marching
with the demonstrators.
(crowd cheering)
Jane:
Say it with me:
I pledge to resist!
I pledge to resist!
Weinstein:
She is not
a fly-by-night activist.
It is deep in her soul.
There is no stopping
that part of herself
'cause it feeds everything.
Jane:
They wouldn't let us in,
but we can still take
our money out!
(crowd cheering)
Garity:
There's this kinetic energy.
She won't stop.
She's on a mission.
This intent to do well
keeps her demons at bay.
Sometimes I want to say,
"You don't need to prove
anything else to anyone.
"You don't need to push...
so hard, constantly."
But...
she is who she is and...
I-- I, quite honestly,
I wouldn't change anything
about her.
Jane:
I had spent so much of my life
feeling if I'm not perfect,
no one can love me.
And then...
I realized that
trying to be perfect
is a toxic journey.
We're not perfect.
We have to love our shadow,
we have to embrace and accept
our shadows.
And sometimes,
good enough is good enough.
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Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018)
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