Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda (
May 16,
1905 –
August 12,
1982) was a highly acclaimed
Academy Award-winning
American film actor, best known for his roles as plain-speaking idealists. Fonda's subtle,
naturalistic acting style preceded by many years the popularization of
method acting. He was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including son
Peter Fonda, daughter
Jane Fonda, granddaughter
Bridget Fonda, and grandson
Troy Garity.
Fonda was born to William Brace Fonda and Herberta Jaynes. From his humble upbringing in a
Nebraskan Christian Scientist family, Fonda made his mark early as a
Broadway actor, and made his
Hollywood debut in
1935. Fonda's career gained momentum after his
Academy Award-nominated performance in
1940's
The Grapes of Wrath, an
adaptation of
John Steinbeck's novel about an
Oklahoma family who moved west during the
Dust Bowl. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a versatile career and a concrete screen image in such classics as
The Ox-Bow Incident,
Mister Roberts, and
12 Angry Men.
Later in his life, Fonda moved both toward more challenging and lighter roles in such epics as
Once Upon a Time in the West and family comedies like
Yours, Mine and Ours. He earned a
Tony nomination for his role in 1974's
Clarence Darrow (having previously won a Tony in
Mister Roberts in 1948), and finished his career with a critically-acclaimed performance in
On Golden Pond in
1981, for which he won the
Academy Award for Best Actor. Fonda was also honored with "Lifetime Achievement"
Academy Awards,
Golden Globes, and
Tony Awards.
Family history and early life
He was born in
Grand Island, Nebraska to William Brace Fonda and Herberta Krueger Jaynes, observant
Christian Scientists. The Fonda family had emigrated westward from
New York in the 1800s, and can trace its ancestry from
Genoa, Italy to
The Netherlands in the 1500s, and then to the
United States of America in the 1600s, where they founded a still-extant town called
Fonda, New York.[
1] In Henry Fonda's
autobiography, he wrote,
"Early records show the family ensconced in northern Italy in the sixteenth century where they fought on the side of the Reformation, fled to Holland, intermarried with Dutch burghers' daughters, picked up the first names of the Low Countries, but retained the Italianate Fonda. Before Pieter Stuyvesant surrendered Nieuw Amsterdam to the English the Fondas, instead of settling in Manhattan, canoed up the Hudson River to the Indian village of Caughawaga. Within a few generations, the Mohawks and the Iroquois were butchered or fled and the town became known to mapmakers as Fonda, New York."[2]
As a youth in Nebraska, Fonda was active in the
Boy Scouts of America as a youth and was a Scoutmaster, but was
not an
Eagle Scout as some report.Fonda relayed the story in the Parkinson show (UK) in the mid 1970s that his father had taken him to see the aftermath of a lynching. This so enraged the young Fonda that a keen social awareness of prejudice was present within him for his entire adult life.
[Letter from Terry C. Lawson, Eagle Scout Service, National Eagle Scout Association, Boy Scouts of America, June 09, 2005] He then attended the
University of Minnesota, majoring in
journalism[
3], although he did not graduate. At age twenty, he started his acting career at the
Omaha Community Playhouse when his mother's friend
Dodie Brando, mother of
Marlon Brando, needed a young man to play the lead in
You and I. He went east to perform with the
Provincetown Players and
Joshua Logan's
University Players, an intercollegiate
summer stock company, where he worked with
Margaret Sullavan, his future wife, and began a lifelong friendship with
Jimmy Stewart.
Early career
Fonda and Stewart headed for
New York City, where the two were roommates and honed their skills on
Broadway. Fonda appeared in theatrical productions from 1926 to 1934, and made his first film appearance (1935) as the leading man in
20th Century Fox's screen adaptation of
The Farmer Takes a Wife, reprising his role from the Broadway production of the same name.
Fonda's film career blossomed as he followed up with an appearance in
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the first
Technicolor movie filmed outdoors, and the lead role in
You Only Live Once (1937), directed by
Fritz Lang. A critical success opposite
Bette Davis in the film
Jezebel (1938) was followed by the title role in
Young Mr. Lincoln and his first collaboration with director
John Ford. Fonda's successes with Ford led Ford to recruit him to play "Tom Joad" in the film version of
John Steinbeck's novel
The Grapes of Wrath (1940), but a reluctant
Darryl Zanuck, who preferred
Tyrone Power, insisted on Fonda's signing a seven-year contract with the studio,
Twentieth Century-Fox.[
4] Fonda agreed, and was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the 1940 film, which many consider to be his finest role. Although his performance is often listed among the greatest in
Hollywood history, Fonda was edged out by Stewart, who won the award for his role as "Macaulay 'Mike' Connor" in
The Philadelphia Story.World War II service
Fonda played opposite
Barbara Stanwyck in
The Lady Eve (1941), and was acclaimed for his role in
The Ox-Bow Incident, but he then enlisted in the
Navy to fight in
World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio."[
5]
Previously, he and Stewart had helped raise funds for the defense of
Britain from the
Nazis.[
6] Fonda served for three years, initially as a
Quartermaster 3rd Class on the
destroyer USS Satterlee; he was later commissioned as a
Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and won a Presidential Citation and the
Bronze Star.[
7][
8]
Post-war career
After the war, Fonda appeared in the film
Fort Apache (1948), and his contract with Fox expired. Refusing another long-term studio contract, Fonda returned to Broadway, wearing his own officer's cap to originate the title role in
Mister Roberts, a comedy about the Navy. He won a 1948
Tony Award for the part, and later reprised his performance in the national tour and 1955 film version opposite
James Cagney, continuing a pattern of bringing his acclaimed stage roles to life on the big screen. On the set of
Mister Roberts, Fonda came to blows with
John Ford and vowed never to work for him again. He never did.
Career in the 1950s and 1960s
After a six-year break from Hollywood, Fonda returned in the critically acclaimed
Mister Roberts, as Lt. Douglas Roberts, a role he had originated in the play. He followed this with
Paramount Pictures's production of the
Leo Tolstoy epic
War and Peace, in which Fonda played Pierre Bezukhov opposite
Audrey Hepburn. Fonda worked with
Alfred Hitchcock in 1956, playing a man falsely accused of murder in
The Wrong Man.
In 1957, Fonda made his first foray into production with
12 Angry Men, based on a script by
Reginald Rose and directed by
Sidney Lumet. The intense film about twelve jurors deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder was well-received by critics worldwide. Fonda shared the
Academy Award and
Golden Globe nominations with coproducer Reginald Rose and won the 1958
BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance as the logical "Juror #8." Henry Fonda vowed that he would never produce a movie ever again. After a series of ordinary
western movies, Fonda returned to the production seat for the
NBC series
The Deputy, in which he also starred.
The
1960s saw Fonda perform in a number of war and western epics, including 1962's
The Longest Day and
How the West Was Won, 1965's
In Harm's Way and
Battle of the Bulge, and the 1964 suspense film
Fail-Safe, about possible nuclear holocaust. He also returned to more light-hearted cinema in 1963's
Spencer's Mountain with actors
Kym Karath and
Veronica Cartwright, the inspiration for the television program
The Waltons, and 1968's
Yours, Mine, and Ours.
He appeared against type as the villain "Frank" in 1968's
Once Upon a Time in the West. After initially turning down the role, he was convinced to accept it by the actor
Eli Wallach and director
Sergio Leone, who flew from Italy to the United States to persuade him to play the part. Fonda had planned on wearing a pair of brown-colored
contact lenses, but Leone had worked important close-up shots of Fonda's blue eyes into the film.
Fonda's relationship with Jimmy Stewart survived their disagreements over politics—Fonda was a
liberal Democrat, and Stewart a
conservative Republican. After a heated argument, they avoided talking politics with each other. In 1970, Fonda and Stewart costarred in the
western The Cheyenne Social Club, a minor film in which the two humorously argued politics. Previously, they had appeared together in
On Our Merry Way, a 1948 comedy featuring
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer which also paired actors
William Demarest and
Fred MacMurray.[
9]
Marriages and children
Henry Fonda was married five times. His marriage to
Margaret Brooke Sullavan in 1931 soon ended in separation, which was finalized in a 1933 divorce. In 1936, he married
Frances Ford Seymour. They had two children,
Peter and
Jane. In 1950, Seymour committed
suicide. Fonda married in
1950 Susan Blanchard, the stepdaughter of
Oscar Hammerstein II. Together, they adopted a daughter, Amy (born 1953) [
10], but divorced three years later, and in 1957 Fonda married Italian
Countess Afdera Franchetti photo. They remained married until 1961. Soon after, Fonda married
Shirlee Mae Adams and remained with her for seventeen years, until his death in 1982.
His relationship with his children has been described as "emotionally distant." In Peter Fonda's 1998 autobiography
Don't Tell Dad, he described how he was never sure how his father felt about him, and that he did not tell his father he loved him until his father was elderly and he finally heard the words, "I love you, son."[
11] Jane Fonda rejected her father's patriotism and his friendships with
Republican actors such as
John Wayne and
James Stewart, and as a result the father/daughter relationship was extremely strained.
Jane Fonda also reported feeling detached from her father, especially during her early acting career. Henry Fonda introduced her to
Lee Strasberg, who became her acting teacher, and as she developed as an actress using the techniques of "
The Method," she found herself frustrated and unable to understand her father's effortless acting style. In the late 1950s, when she asked him how he prepared before going on stage, he baffled her by answering, "I don't know, I stand there, I think about my wife, Afdera, I don't know."[
12] Writer Al Aronowitz, while working on a profile of Jane Fonda for
The Saturday Evening Post in the 1960s, asked Henry Fonda about Method acting:
"I can't articulate about the Method," he told me, "because I never studied it. I don't mean to suggest that I have any feelings one way or the other about it...I don't know what the Method is and I don't care what the Method is. Everybody's got a method. Everybody can't articulate about their method, and I can't, if I have a method—and Jane sometimes says that I use the Method, that is, the capital letter Method, without being aware of it. Maybe I do, it doesn't matter." [13]
Fonda's daughter shared this view: "My father can't articulate the way he works." Jane said. "He just can't do it. He's not even conscious of what he does, and it made him nervous for me to try to articulate what I was trying to do. And I sensed that immediately, so we did very little talking about it...he said, 'Shut up, I don't want to hear about it.' He didn't want me to tell him about it, you know. He wanted to make fun of it."[
14]
Late career
Despite approaching his seventies, Henry Fonda continued to work in both television and film through the
1970s. In
1970 Fonda appeared in three films, the most successful of these ventures being
The Cheyenne Social Club. The other two films were
Too Late the Hero, in which Fonda played a secondary role, and
There Was a Crooked Man, about Paris Pitman Jr. (played by
Kirk Douglas) trying to escape from an Arizona prison.
Fonda made a return to both foreign and television productions, which provided career sustenance through a decade in which many aging screen actors suffered waning careers. He starred in the
ABC television series
The Smith Family between 1971 and 1972. 1973's
TV-movie The Red Pony, an adaptation of
John Steinbeck's novel, earned Fonda an
Emmy nomination. After the unsuccessful
Hollywood melodrama,
Ash Wednesday, he filmed three
Italian productions released in 1973 and 1974. The most successful of these,
Il Mio nome è Nessuno (
My Name Is Nobody), presented Fonda in a rare comedic performance as an old gunslinger whose plans to retire are dampened by a "fan" of sorts.
Henry Fonda continued stage acting throughout his last years, including several demanding roles in
Broadway plays. He returned to Broadway in 1974 for the biographical drama,
Clarence Darrow, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Fonda's health had been deteriorating for years, but his first outward symptoms occurred after a performance of the play in April 1974, when he collapsed from exhaustion. After the appearance of a
heart arrhythmia, a pacemaker was installed and Fonda returned to the play in 1975. After the run of a 1978 play,
First Monday of October, he took the advice of his doctors and quit plays, though he continued to star in films and television.
In 1976, Fonda appeared in several notable television productions, the first being
Collision Course, the story of the volatile relationship between President Harry Truman (
E.G. Marshall) and General MacArthur (Fonda), produced by ABC. After an appearance in the acclaimed
Showtime broadcast of
Almos' a Man, based on a story by
Richard Wright, he starred in the epic
NBC miniseries
Captains and Kings, based on
Taylor Caldwell's novel. Three years later, he appeared in ABC's
Roots: The Next Generations, but the miniseries was overshadowed by its predecessor,
Roots. Also in 1976, Fonda starred in the
World War II blockbuster
Midway.
Fonda finished the 1970s in a number of
disaster films. The first of these was the 1977 Italian killer
octopus thriller
Tentacoli (
Tentacles) and the mediocre
Rollercoaster, in which Fonda appeared with
Richard Widmark and a young
Helen Hunt. He performed once again with Widmark,
Olivia de Havilland,
Fred MacMurray, and
José Ferrer in the
killer bee action film
The Swarm. He also acted in the global disaster film
Meteor, with
Natalie Wood and
Martin Landau, and then the
Canadian production
City on Fire, which also featured
Shelley Winters and
Ava Gardner.
As Fonda's health continued to suffer and he took longer breaks between filming, critics began to take notice of his extensive body of work. In 1979, the
Tony Awards committee gave Fonda a special award for his achievements on Broadway. Lifetime Achievement awards from the
Golden Globes and
Academy Awards followed in 1980 and 1981, respectively.
Fonda continued to act into the early 1980s, though all but one of the productions he was featured in before his death were for television. These television works included the critically acclaimed live performance of
Preston Jones'
The Oldest Living Graduate, the
Emmy nominated
Gideon's Trumpet, and 1981's
Summer Solstice, which teamed Fonda with
Myrna Loy. This is the last film that Henry Fonda is credited for, and work began on it after the release of
On Golden Pond.
Before
Summer Solstice was made, however, 1981 brought Fonda's last cinematic film, an adaptation of
Ernest Thompson's
On Golden Pond. The film, directed by
Mark Rydell, provided unprecedented collaborations between Fonda,
Katharine Hepburn, and Fonda's daughter,
Jane. When premiered in December 1981, the film was well received by critics, and after a
limited release on December 4th
On Golden Pond developed enough of an audience to be widely released on January 22nd. With eleven
Academy Award nominations, the film earned nearly $120 million at the box office, becoming an unexpected blockbuster. In addition to wins for Hepburn (Best Actress), and Thompson (Screenplay),
On Golden Pond brought Fonda his only Oscar for Best Actor (it also earned him a
Golden Globe Best Actor award). After Fonda's death, some film critics called this performance "his last and greatest role".
Death and legacy
Fonda died at his
Los Angeles home on
August 12,
1982, at the age of 77 after suffering from both
heart disease and
prostate cancer. Fonda's wife Shirlee and daughter Jane were at his side when he died.
In the years since his death, his career has been held in even higher regard than during his life. He is widely recognized as one of the Hollywood greats of the classic era. On his 100th birthday,
May 16,
2005,
Turner Classic Movies honored him with a marathon of his films. Also in May 2005, the
United States Post Office released a thirty-seven-cent
postage stamp with an artist's drawing of Fonda as part of their "Hollywood legends" series. [
15]
For a detailed filmography, see: Henry Fonda filmographyFrom the beginning of Henry Fonda's career in
1935 through his last projects in
1981, Fonda appeared in 106 films, television programs, and shorts. Through the course of his career he appeared in many critically acclaimed films, including such classics as
12 Angry Men and
The Ox-Bow Incident. His roles in
1940's
The Grapes of Wrath and
1981's
On Golden Pond earned him
Academy Award nominations (he won for the latter). Fonda made his mark in
westerns and war films, and made frequent appearances in both television and foreign productions late in his career.
*
The Game of Love and Death (Nov. 1929–Jan. 1930)
*
I Loved You, Wednesday (Oct.–Dec. 1932)
*
New Faces of 1934 (Revue; Mar.–Jul. 1934)
*
The Farmer Takes a Wife (Oct. 1934–Jan. 1935)
*
Blow Ye Winds (Sep.–Oct. 1937)
*
Mister Roberts (Feb. 1948–Jan. 1951)
*
Point of No Return (Dec. 1951–Nov. 1952)
*
The Caine Mutiny (Jan. 1954–Jan. 1955)
*
Two for the Seesaw (Jan. 1958–Oct. 1959)
*
Silent Night, Lonely Night (Dec. 1959–Mar. 1960)
*
Critic's Choice (Dec. 1960–May 1961)
*
A Gift of Time (Feb.–May 1962)
*
Generation (Oct. 1965–Jun. 1966)
*
Our Town (Nov.–Dec. 1969)
*
Clarence Darrow (Mar.–Apr. 1974; Mar. 1975)
*
First Monday in October (Oct.–Dec. 1978)
* ''They Call Me Nobody W/Terence Hill (1973)
*
Notable figures in Western films*
*
Meredy's Henry Fonda Trivia*
Tribute Site graphic intensive*
Henry Fonda's Religious Views*
Yahoo! Biography*
Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Henry Fonda*
Everybody's All-American: Henry Fonda (2005 Premiere Magazine article)*
Fonda Family Genealogy*
The Screen Legend: Henry Fonda Site*
Biographie Henry Fonda
