Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters that embodied an everyman image.
Born and raised in Nebraska, Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. He rose to film stardom with performances in films like Jezebel (1938), Jesse James (1939) and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
In 1941, Fonda starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. After his service in World War II, he starred in two highly regarded Westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford. He also starred in Ford's Western Fort Apache (1948). During a seven-year break from films, Fonda focused on stage productions, returning to star in the war-boat ensemble movie Mister Roberts in 1955, a role he championed on Broadway. In 1956, at the age of 51, Fonda played the title role of 38-year-old Manny Balestrero in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Wrong Man. In 1957, Fonda starred as Juror 8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men, a film he co-produced and that earned him a BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.
Later in his career, Fonda played a range of characters, including a villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and the lead in the romantic comedy Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball. He also portrayed military figures, such as a colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965) and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976).
Fonda won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which co-starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda. He was too ill to attend the ceremony and died from heart disease five months later.
Fonda was the patriarch of a family of actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda and grandson Troy Garity. In 1999, he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Screen Legends of the Classic Hollywood Era (stars with a film debut by 1950) by the American Film Institute.
Family history and early life
Jane Fonda, Henry Fonda, and Peter Fonda in July 1955Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, on May 16, 1905, Henry Jaynes Fonda was the son of printer William Brace Fonda, and his wife, Herberta (Jaynes). The family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1906.
Fonda's patriline originates with an ancestor from Genoa, Italy, who migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century. In 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America.[3][4] They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, New York. By 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska.
Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist They were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion. Despite having a religious background, he later became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a good skater, swimmer, and runner. He worked part-time in his father's print plant and imagined a possible career as a journalist. Later, he worked after school for the phone company. He also enjoyed drawing. Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America; Howard Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout. However, this is not supported elsewhere. When he was 14, he and his father witnessed the brutal lynching of Will Brown from a nearby building during the Omaha race riot of 1919. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life. Remarking on the incident in a 1975 BBC interview, he said: "It was the most horrendous sight I'd ever seen. My hands were wet, there were tears in my eyes. All I could think of was that young black man dangling at the end of a rope." By his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than 6 feet tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism, but did not graduate. While at Minnesota he was a member of Chi Delta Xi, a local fraternity, which later became Chi Phi's Gamma Delta chapter on that campus. He took a job with the Retail Credit Company.
Fonda's successes led Ford to recruit him to play Tom Joad in the film version of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1940). A reluctant Darryl Zanuck, who preferred Tyrone Power, insisted on Fonda's signing a seven-year contract with his studio, Twentieth Century-Fox. Fonda agreed and was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film, which many consider to be his finest role. Fonda starred in Fritz Lang's The Return of Frank James (1940) with Gene Tierney. He then played opposite Barbara Stanwyck in Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), and again teamed with Tierney in the successful screwball comedy Rings on Her Fingers (1942). Stanwyck was one of Fonda's favorite co-stars, and they appeared in three films together. He was acclaimed for his role in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).
Fonda enlisted in the United States Navy to fight in World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio." Previously, Jimmy Stewart and Fonda had helped raise funds for the defense of Britain. Fonda served for three years, initially as a quartermaster 3rd class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Navy Presidential Unit Citation. After being discharged from active duty due to being "overage in rank", Fonda was transferred to the Naval Reserve, serving three years (1945-1948).
During the 1960s, Fonda performed in a number of war and Western epics, including 1962's The Longest Day and the Cinerama production How the West Was Won, 1965's In Harm's Way, and Battle of the Bulge. In the Cold War suspense film Fail-Safe (1964), Fonda played the President of the United States who tries to avert a nuclear holocaust through tense negotiations with the Soviets after American bombers are mistakenly ordered to attack the USSR. He also returned to more light-hearted cinema in Spencer's Mountain (1963), which was the inspiration for the 1970s TV series, The Waltons, based on the Great Depression of the 1930s memories of Earl Hamner Jr.
Fonda was married five times and had three children, one of them adopted.
Death and legacy
Fonda died at his Los Angeles home on August 12, 1982, from heart disease. Fonda's wife, Shirlee, his daughter Jane, and his son Peter were at his side that day. He suffered from prostate cancer, but this did not directly cause his death and was noted only as a concurrent ailment on his death certificate.
Fonda requested that no funeral be held, and his body was cremated. President Ronald Reagan, a former actor himself, hailed Fonda as "a true professional dedicated to excellence in his craft. He graced the screen with a sincerity and accuracy which made him a legend."
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- SERVES
- 4
- COOK TIME
- 25 Min
For those times when you want to make your gang feel special anytime, or if you're having a dinner party; our easy yet elegant Company Chicken recipe is one of our Test Kitchen Favorites.
- 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, slightly flattened (about 1-1/2 pounds)
- 4 thin slices Muenster cheese
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- Preheat oven to 350º. Coat a 9- x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- Place bread crumbs in shallow dish and add chicken, turning to coat well. Place chicken in prepared baking dish.
- Bake chicken 15 minutes, then remove from oven and top each piece with slice of cheese; pour wine evenly over top.
- Bake an additional 8 to 10 minutes, or until no pink remains in chicken and cheese is bubbly and light brown.
1921 – Louis Jourdan, French actor (d. 2015)
1969 – Lara Spencer, American TV personality
Martini Lingo
- Dirty – This Martini includes olive brine or juice from the olive jar.
- Dry – The vermouth is decreased significantly in the Martini, and gin becomes the primary spirit. Extra dry tips the ratio even further.
- Gibson – Instead of an olive, bartenders garnish the Martini with a pickled onion.
- Shaken vs. Stirred – Most bartenders will tell you that the better Martini is stirred. Shaken Martinis tend to be inferior due to a couple of reasons – ice chips water down the drink, and shaking the Martini adds air to the cocktail. A stirred Martini results in a smoother, fuller experience.
- Straight Up – This Martini may be either shaken or stirred, but it is strained and served without ice – the opposite of a Martini on the rocks.
- Smoky or Burnt – Scotch whisky replaces the vermouth in this Martini. A twist of lemon garnishes the glass.
- Wet – Where the dry Martini has less vermouth, this one has more.
- With a Twist – The bartender adds a thin strip of citrus peel to the Martini as a garnish or in the drink.
James Bond, the fictional spy, sometimes asked for his vodka Martinis to be “shaken, not stirred.”
Dirty martini – Martini with a splash of olive brine or olive juice and is typically garnished with an olive.
