Jane Seymour Fonda [ 2 ] born December 21, is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, [ 3 ] Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. Fonda established herself as a dramatic actress, winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her roles as a prostitute in the thriller Klute and the woman in love with a Vietnam War veteran in the drama Coming Home Fonda was a political activist in the counterculture era during the Vietnam War.
She was photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun on a visit to Hanoi , during which she gained the nickname "Hanoi Jane". Fonda protested the Iraq War along with violence against women, and she describes herself as a feminist and environmental activist. Fonda is also known for her exercise tapes, starting with Jane Fonda's Workout , which became the highest-selling videotape of its time.
According to her father, the surname Fonda came from an Italian ancestor who immigrated to the Netherlands in the s. She was named for the third wife of Henry VIII , Jane Seymour , to whom she is distantly related on her mother's side, [ 12 ] and because of whom, until she was in fourth grade, Fonda said she was called "Lady" as in Lady Jane.
In , when Fonda was 12, her mother died by suicide while undergoing treatment at Craig House psychiatric hospital in Beacon, New York. Fonda became interested in the arts in , while appearing with her father in a charity performance of The Country Girl at the Omaha Community Playhouse. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone, except my father β who had to say so β told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life. I went to bed thinking about acting.
I woke up thinking about acting. It was like the roof had come off my life! Fonda's stage work in the late s laid the foundation for her film career in the s.
