playing renegade characters and acting the part in real life.
In 1966, he played a biker named Heavenly Blues in Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels, then was an LSD-
taking character in Corman’s The Trip (1967). Fonda essentially combined the two roles in Easy Rider,
which was released in 1969.
He conceived the idea for the film, then called on fellow actor Dennis Hopper to direct the project. “I figure
you direct it, I produce it, we’ll both write it and both star in it, save some money,” Fonda said, according to
the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. The film was made for less than $400,000.
Fonda enlisted novelist Terry Southern to help with the screenplay, which followed the two central
characters, Wyatt and Billy (played by Fonda and Hopper, respectively), on a motorcycle trip across the
west towards New Orleans.
With a powerful rock’n’roll soundtrack featuring, among other songs, Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”,
Easy Rider was released the same year as the Woodstock festival and caught the spirit of the age. The
“chopper” motorcycles became a symbol of open-road rebellion, and Fonda’s character, often wearing a
stars-and-stripes helmet, was dubbed “Captain America”.
Easy Rider was an unexpected box-office success, and the screenplay by Fonda, Hopper and Southern was
nominated for an Academy Award. The film helped usher in a new era in Hollywood, giving rise to a
generation of auteur directors including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese.
The Fonda family in the 1960s: Peter, Henry
and Jane (Rex)Fonda bought a yacht and led a life of excess for the next decade, never equalling the success or esteem of
Easy Rider. Hopper, Fonda’s father and his sister all gained critical acclaim in the 1970s, but Fonda found
himself in films such as Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), playing a thieving bad-boy driver, or in High-Ballin’
(1978), as a rebel truck driver.
In 1983 Fonda regained some respect as an actor in the German film Peppermint Frieden (Peppermint
Freedom), portraying an American soldier in after the Second World War. In 1997 he was cast against type
in Ulee’s Gold (written and directed by Victor Nunez), playing an emotionally closed widower who
unexpectedly finds himself raising his two granddaughters. He was nominated for an Oscar and won a
Golden Globe Award as best actor.
He said he didn’t have to search for to find his inspiration in portraying Ulee Jackson. “I knew Ulee well,”
he said in 1997. “He’s a recalcitrant man with a visage that shows no hint of kindness. I had breakfast across
the table from that guy my whole life ... Oh boy, did I know that guy. Son of a bitch, it was my father.”
Peter Henry Fonda was born in 1940, in New York City. His father was already an established Hollywood