Episode Details
Back to EpisodesJane Fonda: The Actress the United States Senate Called a Traitor
Episode 7034
Published 1 week, 3 days ago
Description
Jane Fonda won two Academy Awards, built a fitness empire, and became one of the most successful actresses in Hollywood history. She also sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, was photographed laughing with enemy soldiers, and earned the nickname "Hanoi Jane" — a label that followed her for fifty years and made her one of the most hated women in America among veterans and conservatives who never forgave her.
This episode traces Fonda from her Hollywood dynasty childhood through the acting career, the antiwar radicalism, the Hanoi photograph that defined her public image, and the decades of reinvention that followed.
- The Hollywood dynasty — Henry Fonda's daughter growing up in the shadow of American royalty
- The acting career, the two Oscars, and the fitness videos that made her a cultural phenomenon
- The Vietnam trip, the anti-aircraft gun photograph, and the "Hanoi Jane" label she could never escape
- The marriages to Tom Hayden and Ted Turner, the political evolution, and the climate activism of her later years