Jane Fonda Trivia | 60 facts about the famous actress

Jane Fonda is an American actress and activist. She’s recognized as a film icon. Thus she’s the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards.

Let’s find out more about her!

1. Caught Ted Turner cheating one month after their wedding, prompting Fonda to hit him repeatedly with a car phone and pour a bottled beverage on his head.
2. Arrested at Cleveland Airport, Ohio, after allegedly kicking patrolman Robert Pieper and customs agent Edward Matuszek in the groin and upper leg during their struggle to detain her upon finding 105 bottles containing some 2,000 capsules in her luggage. The star spent 10 hours in a cell at Cuyahoga County Jail and was released on $6,000 personal bond. A federal drug smuggling charge was dropped once the substances were identified as vitamins and prescribed amounts of Dexedrine, Valium and Compazine.
3. For lack of evidence, a federal assault charge pressed by Matuszek was dropped too, since the supposed ‘assault’ occurred when he chased Fonda into the ladies room. Pieper filed a $100,000 personal injury lawsuit against her in civil court that was eventually dismissed at his attorney’s request. (November 2, 1970)
4. In 1984, her wealth, generated from acting, producing, and fitness videos was estimated at $50 million.
5. Breast cancer survivor.
6. With help of lawyers, she gained access to her late mother’s medical records from the Austen Riggs Center in Massachusetts. The records showed that Frances Seymour had nine abortions before giving birth to Jane.
7. She and her father Henry Fonda are the only father-daughter couple to receive Oscars for leading roles.
8. Married Ted Turner on her birthday in 1991.
9. Nominated for the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance for a Leading Actress in a Play for “33 Variations”.
10. Was offered the role of Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist (1973).
11. Participated in the Vancouver Greenpeace Rally along with roughly 5,500 others (including Rachel McAdams) to protest oil drilling in British Columbia.
12. Danced ballet until she broke her foot in her 40s.
13. Had hip and knee replacements. Unrelated to her workout regimen, it is a genetic condition. Both her father and brother also had replacements.
14. Jane now openly admits that she suffered from bulimia from ages 13 to 37. While modeling, she said she lived on cigarettes, coffee, speed, and strawberry yogurt.
15. Has a maternal half-sister, Pan Corrias (1931-2008) and an adoptive sister, Amy Fishman.
16. Claims that when she is out of makeup she can easily go to public places without being recognized.
17. A 1972 visit to Hanoi during the Vietnam war where Fonda campaigned in favor of the communist regime and the subsequent release of several photographs of her atop a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun used against American air crews earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane.” As a result of her visit to Hanoi and the accompanying photographs, many Americans continue to regard Fonda with general resentment and hostility to this day.
18. Jane’s appearance in On Golden Pond (1981) with dad Henry Fonda and son Troy Garity marked the only time three generations of Fondas appeared in the same film.
19. Attended Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY. Her roommate was Lara Parker. Parker later co-starred with Jane’s brother Peter Fonda in the film Race with the Devil (1975).
20. Passed on the title role in Norma Rae (1979), which won a Best Actress Oscar for its eventual star Sally Field.
21. She and Tom Hayden gave their son Troy Garity his paternal grandmother’s last name for the sake of anonymity.
22. Has a daughter, Vanessa Vadim with Roger Vadim, and a son, Troy Garity with Tom Hayden.
23. Waitressed for a day in Lansing, Michigan in an effort to get press coverage for the One Fair Wage ballot measure.
24. Openly admits to having undergone plastic surgery around her eyes and jawline because she “got tired of looking tired when I wasn’t”.
25. Supported the Indian occupation of Alcatraz, 1969-71, defying a Coast Guard blockade to deliver supplies to militants who’d taken over the island.
26. The suicide of her socialite mother Frances Ford Seymour was kept from her as a teenager, and she was told that she’d died of heart failure. Household newspaper and magazine subscriptions were canceled, and the staff and student body of Fonda’s high school were instructed not to discuss the incident. Fonda learned the truth months later while leafing through a movie magazine in study hall.
27. Was born double-jointed.
28. Was offered the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest(1975), but she turned it down. Louise Fletcher, who went on to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance, was cast instead.
29. Received an honorary degree from Emerson College.
30. IQ of 132.
31. 2019 recipient of the Producers Guild of America’s Stanley Kramer Award for her activism and philanthropic work.
32. Only did Cat Ballou (1965) to fulfill contractual obligations, yet it turned out to be the movie that established her as a box office draw.
33. Claimed, after the Oscar ceremony on April 9th, 1979, that the film Deer Hunter (1978) was a racist film and that it presented the official version of the war in Vietnam.
34. Tom Hayden was worth just $50,000 when he married Fonda in 1973 and refused to sign the prenuptial agreement her lawyer had drawn up. Jane didn’t want to upset him so she dropped the issue. Most of her future earnings went toward financing Hayden’s lackluster political career, and in the couple’s 1990 divorce settlement Hayden received an estimated $30 million under California’s joint property law.
35. In 1978, four years into recovery from bulimia nervosa, she also gave up smoking, an unhealthy habit that has resurfaced from time to time. As recently as 2015 paparazzi snapped her taking a drag at an outdoor café in Paris.
36. Said that Book Club (2018) is the most fun she’s ever had on a movie and cited her co-star Don Johnson as the most attractive actor she’s worked with.
37. Ex-sister-in-law of Susan Brewer and Hélène Plemiannikov.
38. Visited Sweden in September 2006 to support political party FI (Feministic Initiative) in the national election.
39. Shortly after her divorce from Ted Turner, she announced she had become a born-again Christian. Speculations are that this may have played a part in their separation, since Ted Turner has expressed highly critical opinions on religion in general.
40. In a relationship with veteran record producer Richard Perry since October 2008, the couple live together in Los Angeles.
41. Decided to become an actress after Greta Garbo told her she was “pretty enough” at a star-filled bash thrown by her dad on the French Riviera, circa 1957.
42. Protested alongside fellow actresses Sally Field and Christine Lahti, and playwright Eve Ensler urging the Mexican government to re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-Texas border. (February 2004)
43. Named for Henry VIII’s third wife Jane Seymour, from whom her mother Frances maintained she was descended.
44. Jane was mentioned on Sir Mix A Lot’s 1992 hit single, “Baby Got Back”.
45. Her aerobics video Workout (1982) sold 17 million copies, making it the bestselling home video ever and her an icon of this form of exercises.
46. Born on the same day Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) premiered.
47. Her out-of-retirement movie, Monster-in-Law(2005) came out the same time as her autobiography, “My Life So Far” and the same time her workouts are re-released to DVD format in stores.
48. She was a close friend of Gregory Peck and he frequently attended political rallies with her.
49. Credits Simone Signoret for getting her into politics.
50. Hosted the Bank Exit rally in L.A. on her birthday in 2016 with special guests Frances Fisher, Dolores Huerta, Catherine Keener and Lily Tomlin to decry 17 banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline Project and publicly divest her money from Wells Fargo. She was treated to a topical birthday cake upon which the iconic promotional image of herself in Barbarella (1968) was renamed “Bankarella” and embellished with an ironic shower of dollar bills.
51. Does Zazen meditation.
52. Her mother was Canadian, born in Brockville, Leeds, Ontario. Jane’s ancestry includes Dutch, English, Scottish, French-Canadian, and distant Italian, German, Belgian [Flemish], Norwegian, and Cornish.
53. A 1967 image of her topless, arms crossed, windblown and pouty on an Italian beach became a classic pinup poster.
54. A Vietnam veteran spit tobacco juice in her face after waiting 90 minutes in line to have her sign a copy of her memoir at Unity Temple Bookstore in Kansas City, Missouri. Though it was intended as a spit-and-run, Michael A. Smith, 54, was tackled by security and was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Fonda seemed unrattled and once the tobacco juice was wiped off, she continued to sign books without even getting up from her seat. (April 19, 2005)
55. Is the subject of an urban legend. When Vassar was a women’s college, the story goes, Jane Fonda refused to wear the elegant white gloves and pearls that were the attire for the daily Tea in the Rose Parlor. When confronted, Fonda returned to the parlor wearing the gloves and the pearls, and nothing else.
56. She participates in discussion with her fans on janefonda.com where comments are moderated by a site administrator. On regular social media she won’t even bother in view of constant vulgar attacks. She told HARDtalk (1997)’s Stephen Sackur that haters send her messages like “I want to urinate on your grave” all the time.
57. Grandchildren: Malcolm McDuffy (b. 28 May 1999) and Viva Arnett (b. 23 November 2002).
58. As a young starlet she was advised to have her jaw broken and reset, and her back teeth pulled, to create a more chiseled look. She resisted this suggestion.
59. She was, and still is, an exercise maven.
60. Sued Playboy for publishing naked pictures taken without her consent by Jacques Heripe on the set of La curée (1966), for which she was to be filmed only from the back. (August 26, 1966)