Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda Profile

Screen legend, political activist, and fitness guru, Jane Fonda has inspired people around the world promoting a greater understanding of our common humanity through her acting and philanthropy. The Academy award-winning actress is recognized for her relentless advocacy for women and girls.

In addition to starring in over 40 films including Julia, The Morning After, and On Golden Pond, Fonda was one of the first women in Hollywood to start her own production company, IPC Films, which released several acclaimed movies such as Coming Home, The China Syndrome, and On Golden Pond. Fonda made a commitment to only do roles in movies that dealt with socially relevant subjects. Her more recent activities in the performing arts have included a Tony-award nominated role in the Broadway play, 33 Variations, an Emmy-nominated role in the HBO drama The Newsroom, and the lead in the 2015 Netflix series Gracie and Frankie.

Outside the arts Fonda serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. She is the founder of the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, co-founder of the Women’s Media Center, and honorary chairman of V-Day, an international movement to stop violence against women.

• View Extended/Alternate Bio

  Jane Fonda is an actor, author, producer and activist supporting environmental issues, peace and female empowerment. She founded the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory. She cofounded the Women’s Media Center, and sits on the board of V-Day, a global effort to stop violence against women and girls.

  Fonda’s remarkable screen and stage career includes two Best Actress Oscars, an Emmy, a Tony Award nomination and an Honorary Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival.

  Offstage, she revolutionized the fitness industry in the 1980s with Jane Fonda’s Workout — the all-time top-grossing home video. She has written a best-selling memoir, My Life So Far, and Prime Time, a comprehensive guide to living life to the fullest.

  Jane Fonda was the daughter of actor Henry Fonda. She left Vassar College after two years and lived in New York City, where she worked as a model and in 1958 studied acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Her acting career began with appearances in the Broadway play There Was a Little Girl (1960) and the motion picture Tall Story (1960), and she went on to appear in numerous comic films in the 1960s, including Cat Ballou (1965) and Barefoot in the Park (1967).

  Fonda’s subsequent, more-substantial roles were in such socially conscious films as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Klute (1971), Coming Home (1978), and The China Syndrome (1979). She received Academy Awards for best actress for her performances as a call girl in Klute and as the wife of a Vietnam War soldier in Coming Home. Fonda then joined Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin in Nine to Five (1980), a comedy in which three women join forces to get even with their cruel misogynistic boss.

  In 1981 she costarred with her father and Katharine Hepburn in the film On Golden Pond. Fonda’s other movies in the 1980s include Agnes of God (1985) and The Morning After (1986). Following her turn as a struggling widow in Stanley & Iris (1990), Fonda took a break from acting and did not reappear onscreen until 2005, when she starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in the romantic comedy Monster-in-Law. Her later films include Georgia Rule (2007), Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011), Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), and This Is Where I Leave You (2014).

  In 2009 Fonda returned to Broadway, after a 46-year absence, to portray a dying musicologist in “33 Variations.” She also had a recurring role on the television drama The Newsroom (2012–14). She then starred opposite Lily Tomlin in the Netflix television comedy Grace and Frankie (2015), about two women whose husbands leave them for each other.