Reporter Gets the Scoop on Fonda

Journalist and author Robert Scheer is under contract to Doubleday to co-author a biography of actress Jane Fonda.

But don’t expect the man who bagged Jimmy Carter’s famous “lust in my heart” confession for Playboy magazine to write the typical Hollywood bio.

“It’s not a gossipy Hollywood book. It’s a social history of the times and life of Jane Fonda,” said Scheer, 53, a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and a longtime contributor to Playboy and Esquire magazines.

The Irvine resident is writing the Fonda biography with Barry Golson, former executive editor of Playboy who is now editor of a new magazine called Men’s Life.

The co-authors will receive what Scheer terms “a substantial six-figure advance” for their book, which is due out sometime in 1992.

Scheer said the biography is being written “in cooperation” with Fonda, but he and Golson will retain full editorial control over the book’s contents.

Scheer, who has known Fonda nearly 20 years, said his and Golson’s book is the only Jane Fonda biography the actress has ever cooperated with. “That’s what distinguishes it between other books written about her,” he said.

Fonda spokesperson Pat Newcomb said Fonda is involved with the book because the actress has known Scheer “a very long time . . . and just has confidence in him.”

Scheer, former editor-in-chief of Ramparts magazine, first met Fonda in the early ‘70s when he rented his house in Berkeley to the actress while she was filming “Steelyard Blues.”

He was working on a profile of Fonda for Playboy last summer--he accompanied her to Latin America while she was promoting “Old Gringo”--when he decided to do a book instead.

“We had long interviews and it occurred to me no one had really done a serious biography of her,” Scheer said. “They had all been these (magazine and newspaper) clip jobs. And she was so forthcoming and candid in her observations and at a point in her life--past 50--that she was being reflective and open and she agreed to cooperate.”

The book, however, was not “something she eagerly pursued,” said Scheer. “She thought too much was written about her and she didn’t want the publicity.”

But once she agreed to cooperate, Fonda told her friends and co-workers to talk freely with the two authors. Scheer, who is on an unpaid leave of absence from The Times, said he has interviewed Fonda extensively.

“One of the strengths of my book is she is an incredibly articulate person,” he said. “She has a great memory, took a lot of notes and is a sharp observer.”

Scheer said the biography will be a “serious history” of the times in which Fonda has lived and “a critical and honest” look at her career, politics and personal life.

“We trace her life from Tigertail Road in Brentwood to Vassar and France with Roger Vadim, on up to the present. But it’s very much a social history of the last three decades. That’s the main focus of the book: to write a social history with her as the narrator.”

On some historical events, Scheer said, Fonda plays a critical role; on others she is merely an “interested observer.”

“She has just great eyes: She remembers details of the French student uprising--just incredible stuff,” he said.

The Fonda book--Scheer’s first biography--will be his fifth book as author. (He also has edited three books.) His most recent book, “Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornography of Power,” a 1988 collection of his essays and articles, has just been released in paperback by Noonday Press ($11.96).

A Washington Post review of “Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death” said the book “reinforces Scheer’s reputation as one of the toughest, most provocative and talented reporters in American today.”