Jane Fonda- Personal Life

There have been ten biographies written about Jane. Jane stated that the first nine books were written by men who were threatened by her. The tenth biography was a way for Jane to tell her story her way. The biography titled, “The Private Life of a Public Woman” the biography is said to explain Jane’s struggles with self-doubt, vanity, and her “sacrificing everything for the men she loved.”  Jane had three marriages, first Roger Vadim 1965–1973, Tom Hayden 1973–1989, and lastly Ted Turner 1991–2001. She has two children, Vanessa Vadim and Troy Garity. Jane is an actress, model, dance and work-out instructor, and activist.

Jane Fonda was born “Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda” in New York in 1937 to actor Henry Fonda and New York socialite and widow of a wealthy industrialist, Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw. Jayne was originally named after the third wife of the English King Henry VIII to whom she is distantly related to on her mother’s side. Jane is of Dutch and English decent. Jane’s mother wanted her to be a boy, since she had a daughter before Jane, who she named Frances. Jane’s mother finally had a son when Peter Fonda was born. Peter and his daughter Bridget Fonda are actors. Frances died in 2008.

Jane’s mother suffered from postpartum depression and was in the hospital for several weeks following Peter’s birth. Her depression turned to manic mood swings and got even worse when Henry Fonda enlisted in the Army. Henry was enlisted for two years. Jane’s mother spent these two years either in a state of “frenzied activity” or in her bedroom which she kept completely dark and would only allow Peter inside. Jane stated that she would sneak into her mother’s room on occasion and find her staring “wildly at her reflection in the mirror.” Jane said that her mother would catch her and say. “Lady, if I gain any extra weight I’m going to cut it off with a knife!”When Henry Fonda returned from the Army, he announced that he wanted a divorce from Frances and that he was in love with another woman. In an autobiography by Peter, Henry was described as a cold, narcissistic man who never gave love or approval to his many wives or children.

In 1950 Frances Ford Seymour was suffering again from mental illness and was committed to the Craig House Sanitarium for the Insane in Beacon, New York. Jane and Peter remember their mother brining a porcelain box with her as a keepsake. It was later learned that this box held a razor blade when Frances committed suicide by cutting her throat with a razor from ear to ear on her 42nd birthday while in the Sanitarium. Jane was twelve at this time.  Later that year, Henry married Susan Blanchard, another socialite. There married would end in 1956.

Jane remembers a better time in 1956 when her family spent the summer in a large rental house in Cape Cod. This is when Jane began to explore with acting during the summer with her father. She and Henry acted together in a community production at the Dennis Playhouse. Unfortunately for Jane, Henry married a 23 year old countess the year after, in 1957. Jane was 19 years old at the time and was studying at Vassar. Due to her father’s marriage, Jane wanted to escape so she dropped out of Vassar to move to Paris to study painting. It was in Paris that she began modeling for Vogue. It is said that her father was very proud of her modeling career and as he was working on Broadway, he would bring the magazine, showing it to everyone and saying, “Look at how beautiful my daughter is!” This was the time when her career really began. Her biography states the tragedies Jane endured enabled her to channel her emotions into acting and made her incredible career.  Henry divorced the countess in 1961 and married Shirlee Mae Adams who he stayed married to until his death in 1982.