Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress and activist. Fonda's work spans several genres and over seven decades of film and television. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (Oscars), two British… Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress and activist. Fonda's work spans several genres and over seven decades of film and television. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (Oscars), two British Academy Film Awards, eight Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award and two Tony Awards. Fonda is also the recipient of various honorary awards including the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2007, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2014, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2017, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2025.
Born to socialite Frances Ford Seymour and actor Henry Fonda, she made her acting debut with the 1960 Broadway play There Was a Little Girl, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, and made her screen debut the same year in the romantic comedy Tall Story (1960). She rose to prominence with the comedies Period of Adjustment (1962), Sunday in New York (1963), Cat Ballou (1965), Barefoot in the Park (1967), and Barbarella (1968). Her first husband was Barbarella director Roger Vadim. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, she received her first nomination for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) and went on to establish herself as one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation, winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her roles as a prostitute in the thriller Klute (1971) and the woman in love with a Vietnam War veteran in the drama Coming Home (1978). Her other nominations were for Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), On Golden Pond (1981), and The Morning After (1986). Consecutive hits Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), California Suite (1978), The Electric Horseman (1979), and 9 to 5 (1980) sustained Fonda's box-office drawing power, and she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for The Dollmaker (1984).
In 1982 she released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout, which became the highest-selling VHS ever. It would be the first of 22 such videos over the next 13 years, which would collectively sell over 17 million copies. Divorced from second husband Tom Hayden, she married billionaire media mogul Ted Turner in 1991 and retired from acting, following a row of commercially unsuccessful films concluded by Stanley & Iris (1990). Fonda divorced Turner in 2001 and returned to screens with the hit comedy Monster-in-Law (2005). In 2009, she returned to Broadway after 46-year absence from the stage, in 33 Variations, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, and released another five exercise videos between 2009 and 2012. Subsequent films have included This Is Where I Leave You (2014), Youth (2015), Our Souls at Night (2017), Book Club (2018), and 80 for Brady (2023). From 2015 to 2022, Fonda starred in Netflix's comedy series Grace and Frankie, for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
Fonda was a political activist in the counterculture era during the Vietnam War. She was photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun on a 1972 visit to Hanoi, during which she gained the nickname "Hanoi Jane". Fonda protested against the Iraq War along with violence against women, and she describes herself as a feminist and environmental activist. Fonda cofounded the Hollywood Women's Political Committee in 1984 and the Women's Media Center in 2005.
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