Fonda had put his share of ghosts to rest over the
years. Like Jane, he grew up intimidated by their
emotionally distant father. “I had no idea who Hen-
ry Fonda was,” Peter once said. “He wasn’t around
the house much and didn’t communicate much.”
Peter and Jane’s mother, Frances, Henry’s second
wife, died of suicide in 1950, while they were both
children—they were told she’d suffered a fatal heart
attack (neither learned the truth until much later).
The following year 11-year-old Peter shot himself
in the stomach—accidentally, he maintained. “I
died three times on an operating table,” he said.
Fonda made his movie debut opposite San-
dra Dee in 1963’s Tammy and the Doctor. In a few
years, though, Hollywood studios realized that
such old-fashioned corn wasn’t going to bring in
young, hip audiences—they were “a market that
had never been played to,” Fonda said in 2018. Easy
Rider, directed by costar Dennis Hopper, was the
answer: Produced for roughly $400,000, it raked in
$60 million and made major stars not only of Fonda
but also Jack Nicholson as an alcoholic lawyer.
Fonda once said he didn’t mind if his career
never matched friend Nicholson’s—or Jane’s.
What mattered most was how he and Henry had
a breakthrough before the older Fonda’s death
in 1982. When his father told him how much he
loved him, Peter wrote in his 1998 memoir Don’t
Tell Dad, “I hugged him so hard, I could feel the
pacemaker in his chest.” After that, life felt... eas-
ier. “Right now,” he told Esquire in 2009, “if the
stray bullet whacked me or the odd great white
swam up and bit me in two—you know what? It’s
been a hell of a good life.” •
A Dynasty of Stars
His Bond
with Jane
Peter was “sweet-
hearted,” said Jane
(with him in 1960).
They costarred
in 1968’s Spirits
of the Dead.
Regarding
Henry
Both Peter and
Jane struggled to
get close to their
father (ca. 1963).
“Once I forgave
[him],” Peter said,
“everything else
became possible.”
Big Sister
Peter described
Jane (in 2013) as
“driven,” adding,
“Her whole
workout ethic,
what a great thing.”
The Next
Generation
Married three times,
Peter was the father
of Jackie Brown
actress Bridget, 55,
(in 2003) and son
Justin, 53.
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