Why Jane Fonda refused to trade on her father’s name: “I worked harder”
While nepotism has always been prominent in powerful circles and industries, Hollywood being no different, it often seems like we’re deep in the age of the ‘Nepo Baby’.
What with media dynasties like the Kardashians and the children of celebrities being able to influencer their way to the top, it’s become very easy to hate actors, musicians and artists who’ve gotten where they are due to their family ties. However, Jane Fonda is one of those older ‘nepo babies’ who is pretty impossible to hate.
With a six-decade-spanning career, she’s played everything from the titular character in Barbarella to high-class prostitutes in the likes of Klute and was charming us as Grace in Grace & Frankie up until 2022. Alongside her acting credits, she’s also a well-known activist. In 2019, at 81 years old, she was arrested five times for participating in weekly climate change demonstrations and as far back as the 1960s, she was engaged in Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War activism, and became the most hated woman in America because of it.
She’s a powerhouse of a woman, so much so that many from younger generations know her as an actor and political activist in her own right. But to those who have grown up with her, she was known as the daughter of the great “everyman” actor Henry Fonda. Although she followed him into acting, it would have been very easy for her to rely on his name, garner immense privilege and do little else with it.
“When I became an actress, the fact that my father was a movie star was an advantage—no question—because people paid more attention to me than they would have if I were just another actress,” she admitted to Harvard Business Review. This statement alone is enough to endear many to a child of nepotism, as so often they flagrantly deny the access they’ve been granted due to their families.
But the reality is, Fonda never wanted to use her father’s name to further her career. The way that it imposed itself often left her feeling awkward. The first role she took was on her godfather Josh Logan’s film Tall Story, and despite being told the contrary, she couldn’t shake the feeling that’s why she’d gotten the part.
Speaking to this feeling, she said, “Internally, I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t getting parts because I was Henry Fonda’s daughter, so I worked harder. Instead of taking one class a week, I would take four, so no one could say I was a dilettante.” From the very beginning, she wanted to make it due to her own talent, not simply due to her name.
And, after a few years and quite a few films under her belt, she took the first chance to jump ship and get out from the shadow of her family name. This came when she offered a part in French filmmaker René Clément’s Joy House. But after a few years of living and working in France, with her French husband, Roger Vadim and their daughter, she left it all behind to pursue activism in the States — well, according to her.
Whether this last statement is entirely true remains to be seen, but there’s no questioning Fonda’s humility and work ethic, in both acting and activism. It might have slowed down more recently, but the woman is in her late 80s after all. But at the end of the day, she will remain a talented actor in her own right, with many not guessing at her heritage until they decide to look her up.
