From the Vault 270: Jane Fonda

In this week’s episode of From the Vault we offer an insider’s glimpse into a true American iconoclast, Jane Fonda.

Fonda is probably best known for equal parts acting, positions on critical ethical, moral and feminist issues and an instructional fitness and workout empire. Already a prolific and respected actor by the mid-60’s, in 1968 Fonda would attend her first anti Vietnam War protest, and her civic life would change forever. With boundless energy, Jane Fonda continued to hone her craft, notably with her Academy Award performance alongside Donald Sutherland in 1971’s crime thriller Klute, but her passion for activism never seemed to wane. She would make a high profile fact-finding trip to North Vietnam in 1972 with her future husband Tom Hayden, but her effort to help bring peace to the messy conflict was reduced by her retractors to a condescending moniker: “Hanoi Jane.”

Fonda would go on to make many more films, winning accolades again with a performance in the 1978 drama Coming Home with Jon Voight, a vehicle to address the tragedy of war on the big scree