Fonda, Jane (1937- ), American film actress, political activist, and writer and producer of exercise books and videos. She was born in New York, the daughter of the film star Henry Fonda. After studying with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, Fonda won the New York Drama Critics Award for Most Promising New Actress for her Broadway debut in There Was a Little Girl (1959-1960), and received good notices for her early film work in Walk on the Wild Side (1962) and Sunday in New York (1963). Moving to France, she met and later married French film director Roger Vadim, eventually starring as an erotic space maiden in Vadim’s international hit, Barbarella (1968). She was married for a second time in 1973 to Tom Hayden, a political activist.

Tired of sex-kitten roles, and opposed to American involvement in the Vietnam War, Fonda returned to the United States. Touring the country as an anti-war activist, she also took on dramatic roles in They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (1969), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar), and Klute (1971), for which she won an Academy Award. She also won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Lillian Hellman in Julia (1977) and formed her own production company, IPC Films, winning a second Academy Award playing a Vietnam War wife in Coming Home (1978). Other notable IPC productions included the nuclear plant thriller The China Syndrome (1979) and On Golden Pond (1981), in which she played daughter to her father, Henry Fonda. She also wrote the bestselling Jane Fonda’s Workout Book (1981), and her video cassette, Jane Fonda’s Workout, became the biggest seller in video history. Her other films include Agnes of God (1985), The Morning After (1986), Old Gringo (1989), and Stanley & Iris (1990). In 1992 Fonda retired from acting to help her third husband, media mogul Ted Turner, run his empire; however, the couple divorced in 2001.

Fonda starred in a performance of the feminist play The Vagina Monologues in India in 2004 to celebrate International Women's Day, and in 2005 returned to the screen for the first time in 15 years in the comedy Monster-in-Law. Her autobiography My Life So Far was published the same year. She later starred in Georgia Rule (2007). Fonda received a lifetime achievement award from the Cannes Film Festival in 2007.