went up and out with two fingers
extended. She took the cigarette out of
my hand and I thought she was going to
admonish me and put it out, but instead
she put it to her lips, took a deep, long
drag and then cocked her head back and
blew the smoke toward the ceiling.
Vanessa was appalled. “Moooooom!”
This past December I checked back in with Fonda after all these
years. I headed to Washington, D.C., to participate in one of her
now-infamous Fire Drill Fridays, the weekly rallies she’d been
staging, mostly on the lawn of the Capitol, since October to bring
attention to the climate crisis. Inspired by Greta Thunberg—and
teenagers around the world who’ve been walking out of class on
Fridays—Fonda has ended the rallies in civil disobedience with
dozens, sometimes hundreds of people—some of them famous, often
including Fonda herself—getting arrested. The Friday I was there
was a week before Fonda’s 82nd birthday, and it was pouring rain.
The participants gathered at St. Mark’s church, a few blocks from the
Capitol. Fonda was milling about in her red coat—“the last new piece
of clothing I will ever buy”—with a black-and-white houndstooth
cap perched jauntily on her head, looking worried, as usual.
Sally Field was there. Unlike Fonda, she was the very soul of
approachability, a warm, head-cocked smile for everyone. Despite
the fact that she is perhaps best known for her Oscar-winning
performance in the 1979 worker’s rights protest film Norma Rae,
Field had never done anything remotely like this before. “The time
is now,” she would say to the crowd at the rally later, just before
she was handcuffed and hauled away. When I asked her why she
decided to participate, she said, “Because this is just so amazingly
Jane. I am proud to do it, proud to be here for Jane and for my
country.” And then she told me how they met, back in the early
’80s, when they both had development deals with production
offices at the old 20th Century Fox lot. Jane had sent her a “fan
letter” and insisted that they have lunch. “And I wrote back to her
and said, ‘I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to receive this letter,
and I can’t have lunch with you...because I wouldn’t be able to
speak! If you will wait a while, maybe I will grow up some.’” We r e
you intimidated? “Even from afar, she seemed like a quandary to
me. And intimidating beyond belief! Because she was willing to
stand up for what was right. She was willing...you know...in female
terms...to not be liked.” Even today, after decades of lunches,
Field was still a little scared of her. “She’s so raw. And I don’t think
you’re ever prepared for how much it is,