“The most horrible thing”: Why John Wayne said Jane Fonda should be “terribly ashamed”
In the glittering realm of American cinema, John Wayne established himself as one of its biggest stars. Known for his hyper-masculine, rugged performances in some of the greatest western genre movies ever made, Wayne eternally wrote himself into the history books of Hollywood and remains a monolithic figure of the film industry itself.
Given his stature in popular culture, Wayne possessed a platform from which to espouse his frankly right-wing views, and when it came to the controversial topic of the Vietnam War, it looked as though he supported the conflict, visiting the Southeast Asian country in 1966 to offer his respect to the American troops stationed there.
Hollywood at the time seemed to be split down the middle from a political perspective, and though many actors refused to offer their opinions, others stood on the opposite side of the fence from Wayne, most notably Jane Fonda, who seemingly did everything in her power to try and persuade the US government to withdraw from Vietnam.
As a result, Wayne had a deep-seated hatred for Fonda, who was frequently vocal about her disdain for the war. “I would think somebody like Jane Fonda and her idiot husband [Tom Hayden] would be terribly ashamed and saddened that they were a part of causing us to stop helping the South Vietnamese,” Wayne once noted, per the book John Wayne: The Life and the Legend (via CheatSheet).
He added, “Now look what’s happening. They’re getting killed by the millions. Murdered by the millions. How the hell can she and her husband sleep at night?” Not only had Fonda been vocal about her disagreements with the United States Army’s position in Vietnam, but she had also been caught up in one of the most controversial photographs in the history of Hollywood, one that related to the contentious conflict.
Visiting Vietnam in 1972, Fonda organised anti-war shows for the soldiers and spoke publicly on several Vietnamese radio shows. As part of the tour, the actor was photographed sitting in an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi, and when the photo was ill-received back home in America, Fonda was cruelly dubbed “Hanoi Jane”, the name of a traitor, and one that would stick to her reputation for many years to come.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2000, Fonda expressed her remorse at the incident, noting, “I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft [gun], which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanised such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.”
When Fonda saw the photograph for the first time, she suddenly realised its potential ramifications and asked for it not to be published. In her memoir, she wrote, “It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it.”
A heavy price Fonda paid indeed, for even though her reputation recovered somewhat, many decades later, she would always be considered a traitor in the eyes of certain members of the American public, most notably, the brash and opinionated John Wayne.
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