some of jane's critics suggest she was a sex kitten young actress who in the late sixties jumped on the anti-war bandwagon when it became fashionable to do so, and that he marriages to roger vadim, the director, and to tom hayden, the political activist, reflect a search for a male image who appreciates her most valued qualities: vadim, the actress; and hayden, her social conscience. but jane has always shown an admirable lack of interest in her critics and, if anything, i think, people haven't given her enough credit for what she's accomplished.
i first interviewedher back in the mid-sixties, when she was married to the french film director roger vadim. even then jane was anything but an empty-headed actress, as some critics have suggested. she was intelligent, definite and an equal partner with vadim in the marriage. perhaps the fact that vadim had been with brigitte bardot prior to jane left the door open to the sex kitten image. i remember one of my first conversations with fonda and vadim; i asked him why he was such a successful director of women (he was responsible for making bardot a star in america).
"what is important," he said, "is to take from an actress on the screen what her talent gives you and to try and hide what is weak on her. to get a lot of things out of a woman you must pretend to understand everything and to be very cool, and little by little you get what you want. i think that for the theater, not in life. when you hold too strongly a woman you lose her. so in one sense i have become a slave to women."
jane looked at her husband, shook her hed, then spoke up. "i don't see why you say 'slave'. you said you pretend to be cool and to understand a woman. but i think you are cool and you do understand. you are not a slave."
vadim considered his wife's comment, then continued. "you must help people to be themselves, and to help people to be themselves you must make them comfortable. it is not always holding them too strong. don't ask someone always to do exactly what you want them to do. i wait for what a woman gives me. in a way i meet them in their own garden, and i am feminine to win."
i looked puzzled, so jane explained: "he becomes feminine in order to get what he wants. i know what he means. he is right."
i looked puzzled, so jane explained. "he becomes feminine in rder to get what he wants. i know what he means. he is right."
vadim met jane on her own turf, "in her own garden", which perhaps was something she had not experienced with her father. and out of that marriage the strength to assert herself increased. he caused her to search her own limits. she said of vadim as director: "first of all, he says he makes the actress feel comfortable. i don't agree with that, and i think that's why he is a good director. he always keeps you off balance. actresses and actors are usually quite stupid about what we think we can do well, and it is the director who comes along and makes us use muscles we have never used before, just tipsus over a little bit to get good results. vadim does that all the time. i'll say, 'i can't do that, i can't play that scene,' and he'd make me do it, and it would turn into a good scene." judging by the changes that occurred in jane's life in the sixties, her years with vadim brought about a personal expansion, as well as her growth as an actress. that first interview was in 1967. the next version of jane fonda i saw was one of an even more strong-willing woman, this time with a political consciousness.
living in france with vadim gave her a perspective on this country she might never have had if she'd remained in hollywood. she remembers those times well. "i guess i was brought up like most people; our country could do no wrong. i had been in france during the eisenhower administration, the kennedy administration, and living there in 1968 with vadim. i watched the respect for our country go downhill, and i didn't really pay too much attention, because i didn't understand what it meant.
"a frenchman came up to me one day and said, 'well, how do you think your country is doing now?' the papers had just reported that famous incident where we had bombed a vietnamese village in order to 'save' it. i became very defensive. at the same time, there was the anti-war movement going on in america, and i could watch french television and see hundreds of thousands of americans protesting the war. it made me think that something was going on that i didn't understand. so i began to study and to read. when i began to learn what was going on in vietname, i couldn't believe it. i started talking with soldiers who had been in vietname, and my reaction to what they told me was one of anger; i felt that i had been deceived and manipulated by a lot of government propaganda. i wasn't a young student anymore, i was thirty-two years old. and i said, 'okay, half of my life is already over and i want to go back to the united states and participate with other people to expose what is going on.'
"i remember my business manager and my public relaions people saying, 'oh jane, don't do that. you're going to ruin your career!' but i thought to myself, what has my carer meant to me at this point? am i all that happy with my career? i've lived in hollywood long enough to know that all the mansions and swimming pools also mean psychiatrists; it means having your children alienated from you; it means not necessarily a great deal of happiness. i felt that i had spent enough time being cynical and irrelevant and apathetic. i came along in the anti-war movement when it was relatively fashionable to be against the war. but all those before me sort of helped me understand that there may be a lot wrong with the government, but there's nothing wrong with the american people."
despite what jane says about her career in the late sixties, her move into political reform wasn't all that easy. she knew that by speaking out against the government she was going to alienate a large art of the american public, all those people between new york and los angeles who go to the movies and make million-dollar salaries for actors and actresses possible. her abilities as an actress were what gave her a public platform, and by taking an anti-nixon, anti-war stand in 1968, she risked losing that platform forever.
"i had to assume that i would not work again," she told me. "i had to make a choice about whether i would stop being a political activist against the war or worry about acting; i didn't think i could like with myself if i didn't do what i felt needed to be done."
jane not only risked her career; she risked something that was less tangible and more precious to her: her relatinship with her father. peter fonda recalled to me a moment when henry fonda realized his children were taking a controversial stand. "he once made a comment to me about the 'peaceniks' making the war last longr than it had to" (a theory supported by no less a source than henry kissinger, and discussed later in this book). "i said to my dad,'i'm one of those people that you're talking about,' we had a tremendous locking of horns, but i knew i was right in what i was saying. but we never stopped talking, we never got to the point of, 'unless you apologize we're never to speak again'."
howard teichman pointed out to me, however, that jane felt the terrible pressure of her anti-war stand potentially separating her from her father. teichman reports that at one point henry said to jane, "if i find our you're a communist or a communist sympathizer, i, your father, will be the first one to turn you in, because i fought for his country, and i love it. everything isn't perfect here, but it's a lot better here than it is elsewhere." but to henry fonda's credit, teichman says, he allowed his children to educate him. "he was not opposed to their activism. he let them go, and they showed him the light."
jane later recalled for me the poignant moment when she arranged for a screening of "coming home" for her father. that was the film, produced by jane's company, starring her and jon voight, about the effect of the vietnam war on men who fought it, particularly the men who returned from the war crippled for life. after henry saw the film, jane remembers, he couldn't talk for hours, he was so shook up and moved by it.
i had the same reaction. we had agreed to salute the cast of the film -- jane, voight and bruce dern. on the morning of our afternoon taping i went to a screening of the film with several of my staff. when the film ended no one in the screening room spoke. we all looked at each other but no one could say anything after the impact of the film. during the taping that afternoon i was very subdued. jane fonda had learned how to present her concerns in a way that carried a thousand times the emotional weight of any speech or debate.
instead of backing down from "the system", she is assaulting it head on. in the early seventies she was obviously considered a "security risk" by certain people in the government, and she became a target of fbi surveillance.
"j.edgar hoover wrote a letter to the fbi office in los angeles," jane asserts, "asking them to write a letter, from a non-existent person, to army archerd, the hollywood columnist. this person said in the letter that they had seen me at a fund-raising gathering, raising money to buy guns, and leading to a chat where i used foul language and suggested that richard nixon should be killed. totally fabricated, needless to say, and at the bottom of the memo, j.edgar hoover wrote, "this will serve to discredit her in hollywood.' in other words, it was a carefully orchestrated plan to create the impression that i was violence-prone, foul-mouthed and generally had that kind of attitude... the fbi went to the bank in new york, and without a subpoena, illegally took from that bank every financial record in my name, every check stub, everything. it was a flagrant violation of my constitutional rights, and they pulled out the old bugaboo. 'she's a national security risk.' i'd never even broken the law, never was guilty of a misdemeanor, but i was a national security risk.
"the most frightening thing of all happened in 1973. the fbi sent a woman undercover agent, disguised as a reporter, who was interested in my activities as an actress and political activist. but her real purpose in coming to my house was to find out when my child was to be born. why? why did they need to know when my child was going to be born? it is so strange."
and now jane is working within the system that tried to subvert her, by supporting the political campaigns of her husband tom hayden. during his campaign for the california house of representatives, she walked door to door in her district, talking with people about her husband's and her beliefs. she has avoided raising her childen in the opulence of beverly hills or bel air, though she could well afford to. she and tom live in a modest home in santa monica. her children are, of course, a major part of her daily schedule.
jane fonda has done what so few people are able to do: understand what they did not like in their own childhood and not compound the error with their own children.
and it is to her credit that she values that accomplishment above the oscars and everything else she's attained.
'from where i sit - merv griffin's book of people' with peter barsocchini
(copyright c1982 by merv griffin and nippersink enterprises, inc.)
arbor house publishing usa and fitzhenry & whiteside ltd. canada
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/087795416X/internatio088-20
