American Film Institute to give Jane Fonda a Life Achievement Award
Two-time Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda has been named the recipient of the American Film Institute’s 42nd Life Achievement Award. The award will be presented at a gala tribute on June 5.
Her father, actor Henry Fonda, was the AFI Life Achievement winner in 1978.
“Jane Fonda is American film royalty,” said Howard Stringer, chairman of the AFI’s board of trustees. “A bright light first introduced to the world as the daughter of Henry Fonda, the world watched as she found her own voice and forged her own path as an actor and a cultural icon. Today she stands tall among the giants of American film.”
PHOTOS: Leading ladies of the fall TV season
Fonda, 75, is the eighth woman to receive the AFI award, after Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Barbara Stanwyck and Shirley MacLaine.
Other winners include Mel Brooks, John Ford, Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks, Gregory Peck, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Warren Beatty.
Fonda made her film debut in the 1960 comedy “Tall Story” and appeared in such hits as 1967’s “Barefoot in the Park” and 1968’s sexy sci-fi comedy “Barbarella,” directed by her first husband, Roger Vadim.
It was her harrowing performance in the 1969 Depression-era drama “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” that garnered Fonda her first Oscar nomination, as lead actress. She won her first Academy Award for lead actress as a call girl in 1971’s “Klute.”
PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments
Her career went into a downturn after the Oscar win because of her outspoken political activism and anti-Vietnam War activities — she was derided as “Hanoi Jane” after she visited the Vietnam capital in 1972.
But Fonda rebounded in Fred Zinnemann’s 1977 drama “Julia,” for which she earned an Oscar nomination.
She won her second Oscar for lead actress for Hal Ashby’s1978 Vietnam War drama, “Coming Home.” She also earned nominations for 1979’s “The China Syndrome” and 1986’s “The Morning After” and a supporting actress nod playing opposite her father in 1981’s “On Golden Pond.”
Fonda recently earned an Emmy nomination for HBO’s “The Newsroom.”
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
