Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor whose career spanned five decades onBroadway and inHollywood.[1] Known for his work on screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied aneveryman image.
In 1941, Fonda starred oppositeBarbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classicThe Lady Eve. After his service in World War II, he starred in two highly regarded Westerns:The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) andMy Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed byJohn Ford. He also starred in Ford's WesternFort Apache (1948). During a seven-year break from films, Fonda focused on stage productions, returning to star in the war-boat ensemble movieMister Roberts in 1955, a role he championed on Broadway. In 1956, at the age of 51, Fonda played the title role of 38-year-old Manny Balestrero in Alfred Hitchcock's thrillerThe Wrong Man. In 1957, Fonda starred as Juror 8, the hold-out juror, in12 Angry Men, a film he co-produced and that earned him aBAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.
Fonda won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the54th Academy Awards for his final film role inOn Golden Pond (1981), which co-starredKatharine Hepburn and his daughterJane Fonda. He was too ill to attend the ceremony and died from heart disease five months later.
Born inGrand Island, Nebraska, on May 16, 1905, Henry Jaynes Fonda was the son of printer William Brace Fonda, and his wife, Herberta (Jaynes). The family moved toOmaha, Nebraska, in 1906.[2]
Fonda's patriline originates with an ancestor fromGenoa, Italy, who migrated to theNetherlands in the 15th century.[3] In 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony ofNew Netherland on theEast Coast of North America.[3][4] They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town ofFonda, New York.[3] By 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska.[3]
Fonda was brought up as aChristian Scientist.[5] The family was close and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion.[6] Despite having a religious background, he later became an agnostic.[7] Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a good skater, swimmer, and runner. He worked part-time in his father's print plant and imagined a possible career as a journalist. Later, he worked after school for the phone company. He also enjoyed drawing. Fonda was active in theBoy Scouts of America;Howard Teichmann's biography of Fonda, as well as his son Peter Fonda, stated that he reached the rank ofEagle Scout.[8][9] However, other sources contradict that claim, some stating that he was instead a ScoutMaster.[10] When he was 14, he and his father witnessed the brutallynching of Will Brown from a nearby building during theOmaha race riot of 1919.[11] This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life.[12] Remarking on the incident in a 1975 BBC interview, he said: "It was the most horrendous sight I'd ever seen. My hands were wet, there were tears in my eyes. All I could think of was that young black man dangling at the end of a rope."[13] By his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than 6 feet (180 cm) tall, but remained shy. He attended theUniversity of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism,[14] but did not graduate. While at Minnesota he was a member of Chi Delta Xi, a local fraternity, which later becameChi Phi's Gamma Delta chapter on that campus.[15][16] He took a job with theRetail Credit Company.
At age 20, Fonda started his acting career at theOmaha Community Playhouse when his mother's friend Dodie Brando (mother ofMarlon Brando) recommended that he try out for a juvenile part inYou and I, in which he was cast as Ricky.[17] He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, and embarrassed by his acting ability.[18] When he received the lead inMerton of the Movies, he realized the beauty of acting as a profession, as it allowed him to deflect attention from his own tongue-tied personality and create stage characters relying on someone else's scripted words. Fonda decided to quit his job and go east in 1928 to seek his fortune.[19]
He arrived on Cape Cod and played a minor role at the Cape Playhouse inDennis, Massachusetts. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a valued member of theUniversity Players, an intercollegiatesummer stock company. There, he worked withMargaret Sullavan, his future wife.[20]James Stewart joined the Players a few months after Fonda left, though they were soon to become lifelong friends. Fonda left the Players at the end of their 1931–1932 season after appearing in his first professional role inThe Jest, bySem Benelli.Joshua Logan, a young sophomore at Princeton who had been double-cast in the show, gave Fonda the part of Tornaquinci, "an elderly Italian man with a long white beard and even longer hair." Also in the cast ofThe Jest with Fonda and Logan wereBretaigne Windust,Kent Smith, andEleanor Phelps.[21]
Soon after, Fonda headed for New York City to be with his then wife,Margaret Sullavan. The marriage was brief, but whenJames Stewart came to New York his luck changed. Getting contact information fromJoshua Logan, "Jimmy" and "Hank" found they had a lot in common, as long as they didn't discuss politics. The two men became roommates and honed their skills onBroadway. Fonda appeared in theatrical productions from 1926 to 1934. They fared no better than many Americans in and out of work during the early part of theGreat Depression, sometimes lacking enough money to take the subway.[22]
Fonda got his first break in films when he was hired in 1935 asJanet Gaynor'sleading man in20th Century Fox's screen adaptation ofThe Farmer Takes a Wife; he reprised his role from the Broadway production of the same name, which had gained him recognition. Suddenly, Fonda was making $3,000 a week (equivalent to $69,000 in 2024) and dining with Hollywood stars such asCarole Lombard.[23] Stewart soon followed him to Hollywood, and they roomed together again, in lodgings next door toGreta Garbo. In 1935 Fonda starred in the RKO filmI Dream Too Much with the opera starLily Pons.The New York Times announced him as "Henry Fonda, the most likable of the new crop of romantic juveniles."[24]Fonda's film career blossomed as he costarred withSylvia Sidney andFred MacMurray inThe Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the firstTechnicolor movie filmed outdoors.[25]
After the war, Fonda took a break from movies and attended Hollywood parties and enjoyed civilian life. Stewart and Fonda would listen to records and inviteJohnny Mercer,Hoagy Carmichael,Dinah Shore, andNat King Cole over for music, with the latter giving the family piano lessons.[32] Fonda playedWyatt Earp inMy Darling Clementine (1946), which was directed by John Ford. Fonda did seven postwar films until his contract with Fox expired, the last beingOtto Preminger'sDaisy Kenyon (1947), oppositeJoan Crawford. He starred inThe Fugitive (1947), which was the first film of Ford's new production company,Argosy Pictures. In 1948 he appeared in a subsequent Argosy/Ford production,Fort Apache, as a rigid Army colonel, along withJohn Wayne andShirley Temple in her first adult role.
Wearing the bars of a full lieutenant, Fonda is awarded the Bronze Star.Fonda in Navy uniformFonda inMister Roberts
Refusing another long-term studio contract, Fonda returned to Broadway, wearing his own officer's cap to originate the title role inMister Roberts, a comedy about theU.S. Navy, duringWorld War II in theSouth Pacific Ocean where Fonda, a junior officer, Lt. Douglas A. Roberts wages a private war against a tyrannical captain. He won a 1948Tony Award for the part. Fonda followed that by reprising his performance in the national tour and with successful stage runs inPoint of No Return andThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. After an eight-year absence from films, he starred in the same role in the 1955 film version ofMister Roberts withJames Cagney,William Powell, andJack Lemmon, continuing a pattern of bringing his acclaimed stage roles to life on the big screen. On the set ofMister Roberts, Fonda came to blows with directorJohn Ford, who punched him during filming, and Fonda vowed never to work for the director again. While he kept that vow for years, Fonda spoke glowingly of Ford inPeter Bogdanovich's documentaryDirected by John Ford and in a documentary on Ford's career alongside Ford and James Stewart. Fonda refused to participate until he learned that Ford had insisted on casting Fonda as the lead in the film version ofMr. Roberts, reviving Fonda's film career after concentrating on the stage for years.
AfterMr. Roberts, Fonda was next inParamount Pictures's production ofLeo Tolstoy's epic novelWar and Peace (1956) about French EmperorNapoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, in which he played Pierre Bezukhov oppositeAudrey Hepburn; it took two years to shoot. Fonda worked withAlfred Hitchcock in 1956, playing a man falsely accused of robbery inThe Wrong Man; the unusual semidocumentary work of Hitchcock was based on an actual incident and partly filmed on location.
In 1957, Fonda made his first foray into producing with12 Angry Men, in which he also starred. The film was based on a teleplay and a script byReginald Rose, and directed bySidney Lumet. The low-budget production was completed in 17 days of filming, mostly in one claustrophobic jury room. It had a strong cast, including alsoJack Klugman,Lee J. Cobb,Martin Balsam, andE. G. Marshall. The intense story about twelve jurors deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder was well received by critics worldwide. Fonda shared theAcademy Award andGolden Globe nominations with co-producer Reginald Rose, and won the 1958BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance as Juror 8. Early on, the film drew poorly, but after gaining recognition and awards, it proved a success. In spite of the outcome, Fonda vowed that he would never produce a movie again, fearing that failing as a producer might derail his acting career.[33] After acting in theWestern moviesThe Tin Star (1957) andWarlock (1959), Fonda returned to the production seat for theNBC Western television seriesThe Deputy (1959–1961), in which he starred as Marshal Simon Fry. His co-stars wereAllen Case andRead Morgan.
During the 1960s, Fonda performed in a number of war and Western epics, including 1962'sThe Longest Day and the Cinerama productionHow the West Was Won, 1965'sIn Harm's Way, andBattle of the Bulge. In theCold War suspense filmFail-Safe (1964), Fonda played the President of the United States who tries to avert anuclear holocaust through tense negotiations with the Soviets after American bombers are mistakenly ordered to attack the USSR. He also returned to more light-hearted cinema inSpencer's Mountain (1963), which was the inspiration for the 1970s TV series,The Waltons, based on theGreat Depression of the 1930s memories ofEarl Hamner Jr.
Fonda appeared against type as the villain 'Frank' in 1968'sOnce Upon a Time in the West. After initially turning down the role, he was convinced to accept it by actorEli Wallach and directorSergio Leone (who had previously tried to hire him to portray theMan with No Name in hisDollars Trilogy, a role that was later taken on byClint Eastwood), who flew from Italy to the United States to persuade him to take the part. Fonda had planned on wearing a pair of brown-coloredcontact lenses, but Leone preferred the paradox of contrasting close-up shots of Fonda's innocent-looking blue eyes with the vicious personality of the character Fonda portrayed.
Fonda's relationship with Jimmy Stewart survived their disagreements over politics – Fonda was a liberalDemocrat, and Stewart a conservativeRepublican. After a heated argument, they avoided talking politics with each other. The two men teamed up for 1968'sFirecreek, where Fonda again played the heavy. In 1970, Fonda and Stewart co-starred in theWesternThe Cheyenne Social Club, in which they humorously argued politics. They had first appeared together on film inOn Our Merry Way (1948), an episodic comedy which also starredWilliam Demarest andFred MacMurray and featured a grown-upCarl "Alfalfa" Switzer, who had acted as a child in theOur Gang movie serials of the 1930s.[34]
Despite approaching his seventies, Fonda continued to work in theater, television and film through the 1970s. In 1970, Fonda appeared in three films; the most successful wasThe Cheyenne Social Club. The other two films wereToo Late the Hero, in which Fonda played a secondary role, andThere Was a Crooked Man, about Paris Pitman Jr. (played byKirk Douglas) trying to escape from an Arizona prison.
Fonda returned 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 theABC television seriesThe Smith Family between 1971 and 1972. A television film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, 1973'sThe Red Pony, 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,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.
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 acardiac arrhythmia brought on byprostate cancer, he had a pacemaker installed following cancer surgery. 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 beingCollision 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 acclaimedShowtime broadcast ofAlmos' a Man, based on a story byRichard Wright, he starred in the epicNBC miniseriesCaptains and the Kings, based onTaylor Caldwell's novel. Three years later, he appeared in ABC'sRoots: The Next Generations, but the miniseries was overshadowed by its predecessor,Roots. Also in 1976, Fonda starred in the World War II blockbusterMidway.
As Fonda's health declined and he took longer breaks between filming, critics began to acknowledge the value of his extensive body of work. In 1979, he received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement. His Golden Plate was presented by Awards Council memberJimmy Stewart.[36] In 1979, he was inducted into theAmerican Theater Hall of Fame for his achievements on Broadway and received theKennedy Center Honor.[37] Lifetime Achievement awards from theGolden Globes andAcademy Awards followed in 1980 and 1981, respectively.
Fonda continued to act into the early 1980s, though all but one of the productions in which he was featured before his death were for television. The television works included the live performance ofPreston Jones'sThe Oldest Living Graduate and the Emmy-nominatedGideon's Trumpet (co-starringFay Wray in her last performance) aboutClarence Gideon's fight to have the right to publicly funded legal counsel for the indigent.
On Golden Pond in 1981, the film adaptation ofErnest Thompson's play, marked one final professional and personal triumph for Fonda. Directed byMark Rydell, the movie presented a powerful collaboration between Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, and his daughter,Jane Fonda. The elder Fonda played an emotionally brittle and distant father who becomes more accessible at the end of his life. Jane Fonda has said that elements of the story mirrored their real-life relationship and helped them resolve certain issues. She bought the film rights in the hope that her father would play the role and later described it as "a gift to my father that was so unbelievably successful."[38]
Premiered in December 1981, the film was well received by critics and, after alimited release on December 4,On Golden Pond developed enough of an audience to be widely released on January 22. With 10 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 (he was the oldest recipient of the award; it also earned him a Golden Globe Best Actor award). Fonda was by that point too ill to attend the ceremony, and his daughter Jane accepted on his behalf. She said when accepting the award that her dad would probably quip, "Well, ain't I lucky." Years later, Fonda's performance would be remembered as a "brutally honest portrayal of frightened old age."[39]
Fonda's final performance was in the 1981 television dramaSummer Solstice[40] withMyrna Loy. It was filmed afterOn Golden Pond had wrapped and Fonda was in rapidly declining health.
Fonda was married five times and had three children, one of them adopted. His marriage to Margaret Sullavan in 1931 soon ended in separation, which was finalized in a 1933 divorce. Throughout most of 1935, Fonda dated actress/singerShirley Ross;[41][42][43][44][45] by year's end, it had been widely reported—by, among others, then-syndicated columnistEd Sullivan—that the couple was engaged, with wedding plans afoot.[46][47][48][49] Reports notwithstanding, both parties evidently reconsidered and in January 1936 it was reported that Fonda was now seeing actressVirginia Bruce.[50][41]
Fonda had met Frances atDenham Studios in England on the set ofWings of the Morning,[53] the first picture in Europe to be filmed in three-stripTechnicolor.[54] They had two children,Jane (b. 1937) andPeter (1940–2019), both of whom became successful actors. Jane has won two Best ActressAcademy Awards, and Peter was nominated for two Oscars, one for Best Actor.
In August 1949, Fonda announced to Frances that he wanted a divorce so he could remarry; their 13 years of marriage had not been happy ones for him.[55] Devastated by Fonda's confession and plagued by emotional problems for many years, Frances went into theCraig House Sanitarium in January 1950 for treatment. She committed suicide there on April 14. Before her death, she had written six notes to various individuals, but left no final message for her husband. Fonda quickly arranged a private funeral with only himself and his mother-in-law, Sophie Seymour, in attendance.[56] Years later, Dr. Margaret Gibson, the psychiatrist who had treated Frances at Austen Riggs, described Henry Fonda as "a cold, self-absorbed person, a completenarcissist."[57]
Later in 1950, Fonda marriedSusan Blanchard, his mistress. She was 21 years old, the daughter of Australian-born interior designerDorothy Hammerstein, and the step-daughter ofOscar Hammerstein II.[58] Together, they adopted a daughter, Amy Fishman (b. 1953).[59] They divorced three years later. Blanchard was in awe of Fonda, and she described her role in the marriage as "a geisha", doing everything she could to please him, dealing with and solving problems he would not acknowledge.[60]
In 1957 Fonda married the ItalianbaronessAfdera Franchetti.[61] They divorced in 1961. Soon after, in 1965, Fonda married Shirlee Mae Adams (born in 1932) and remained with her until his death in 1982.
Fonda at son Peter's 1961 wedding to Susan Brewer
Fonda's relationship with his children has been described as "emotionally distant". Fonda loathed displays of feeling in himself or others, and this was a consistent part of his character. Whenever he felt that his emotional wall was being breached, he had outbursts of anger, exhibiting a furious temper that terrified his family.[60] In Peter Fonda's 1998 autobiographyDon't Tell Dad (1998), he described how he was never sure how his father felt about him. He never volunteered to his father that he loved him until he was elderly, and Peter finally heard, "I love you, son."[62] His daughter Jane rejected her father's friendships with Republican actors such asJohn Wayne andJames Stewart. Their relationship became extremely strained as Jane Fonda became a left-wing activist.
Jane Fonda reported feeling detached from her father, especially during her early acting days. In 1958 she metLee Strasberg while visiting her father in Malibu. The Fonda and Strasberg families were neighbors, and she had developed a friendship with Strasberg's daughter,Susan. Jane Fonda began studying acting with Strasberg, learning the techniques of "The Method" of which Strasberg was a renowned proponent. This proved to be a pivotal point in her career. As Jane Fonda developed her skill as an actress, she became frustrated with her father's talent that, to her, appeared a demonstration of effortless ability.[63]
The writerAl Aronowitz, while working on a profile of Jane Fonda forThe Saturday Evening Post in the 1960s, asked Henry Fonda aboutmethod 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."[68]
Aronowitz reported Jane saying, "My father can't articulate the way he works. 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."[68]
Fonda died at his Los Angeles home on August 12, 1982, fromheart disease. Fonda's wife, Shirlee, his daughter Jane, and his son Peter were at his side that day.[69][70] He suffered fromprostate cancer, but this did not directly cause his death and was noted only as a concurrent ailment on his death certificate.
Fonda requested that no funeral be held, and his body was cremated. PresidentRonald Reagan, a former actor himself, hailed Fonda as "a true professional dedicated to excellence in his craft. He graced the screen with a sincerity and accuracy which made him a legend."[71]
Fonda is widely recognized as one of the Hollywood greats of the classic era. On the centenary of his birth, May 16, 2005,Turner Classic Movies (TCM) honored Fonda with a marathon of his films. Also in May 2005, theUnited States Post Office released a 37-cent postage stamp with an artist's drawing of Fonda as part of their "Hollywood legends" series.[28]The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, originally known as the Carter DeHaven Music Box, was named for the actor in 1985 by theNederlander Organization.
InJoseph Heller's satirical novelCatch-22, there is a running joke that fictional characterMajor Major Major Major resembles Henry Fonda.Philip D. Beidler comments that "one of the novel's great absurd jokes is the character's bewildering resemblance to Henry Fonda".[72]
From the beginning of his 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 films, including classics such as12 Angry Men andThe Ox-Bow Incident. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in 1940'sThe Grapes of Wrath and won for his part in 1981'sOn Golden Pond. Fonda made his mark in Westerns (which included his most villainous role as Frank inOnce Upon a Time in the West) and war films, and made frequent appearances in both television and foreign productions late in his career.
^Kevin Sweeney (1992).Henry Fonda: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 70.ISBN9780313265716.Fonda reveals his up-to-the-minute thoughts on religion (he's an agnostic),...
^Minnesota Gopher yearbook. 1926. Archived fromthe original on August 1, 2020.He is pictured in the 1926 yearbook p.438, but is no longer listed on the group's roster. (Photography and editing occurred sometimes a year ahead of theclass name of the book, so his participation likely spanned 1924-25.)
^Bain, David Haward (2004).The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West. New York City: Penguin Books. pp. 65–6.ISBN0-14-303526-6.
^abEyman, Scott (2017).Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 74.ISBN978-1-5011-0217-2.Stewart would take great delight in pricking Fonda's affectation of isolation, often by enumerating chapter and verse. He noted Fonda's infatuation with the actress Shirley Ross, and said that, 'We both dated Virginia Bruce.
^Carroll, Harrison (May 1, 1935)."Behind the Scenes in Hollywood".The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader. p. 2. RetrievedAugust 14, 2022.Shirley Ross and Henry Fonda (Margaret Sullivan's ex) were having a gay time at Frank Sebastian's Cotton Club the other evening ... she in a white linen sport suit and he in a tuxedo
^Sullivan, Ed (June 17, 1935)."Broadway: Men and Maids".New York Daily News. p. 31. RetrievedAugust 14, 2022.Henry Fonda, who clicks in the Janet Gaynor flicker, is sending flowers daily to Shirley Ross
^Araujo (November 24, 2005)."Sermon of September 27, 1998".First United Methodist Church of San Diego. Archived fromthe original on November 24, 2005. RetrievedJanuary 11, 2007.
Houghton, Norris (1951).But Not Forgotten: The Adventure of the University Players. New York: William Sloane Associates.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Harvey Fierstein / Marco Paguia, David Oquendo, Renesito Avich, Gustavo Schartz, Javier Días, Román Diaz, Mauricio Herrera, Jesus Ricardo, Eddie Venegas, Hery Paz, and Leonardo Reyna / Jamie Harrison, Chris Fisher, Gary Beestone, and Edward Pierce (2025)
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