CITIZEN JANE <i> by Christopher Andersen (Henry Holt: $19.95; 389 pp.) </i>

“Citizen Jane” also touches on the price required for success in Hollywood, but does so by trundling out truckloads of celebrity-bio cliches. Or so it seems; after a while it’s easier to conclude that Christopher Andersen’s subject, Jane Fonda, has simply lived one of the prototypal show-biz lives (travel to North Vietnam aside). Unloved daughter of a much-married leading man; rich, horse-riding, rebellious; deflowered by older man, college drop-out; discovers hidden acting talent and necessary Svengali, becomes sex symbol, marries director; rebels again, finds new self and new Svengali; remarries, redivorces, strikes out on her own. . . . You get the idea. With a few exceptions--who knew that she passed up starring roles in “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Carnal Knowledge” and “Dr. Zhivago”?--we seem to be acquainted with Jane’s story before Andersen relates it.

But familiarity isn’t the only problem. Although Andersen has interviewed all the famous Fondas, “Citizen Jane” reads as though it were based on others’ accounts. One longs for Fonda to speak in the present tense--something that occurs only in the last few pages. Andersen’s colorful writing and pop-psychologizing simply don’t make up for his failure to compose a considered, reflective portrait. Perhaps it’s true that when Jane’s mother committed suicide there was “a glint from the tiny razor blade that lay on the floor near her right hand,” or that the men in Jane’s life have been father substitutes, but emphasis on such things reveal an author willing to sacrifice insight for voyeurism. Andersen seems to have gathered most of the facts with which to complete the puzzle of Jane’s life (and it is a puzzle, considering that “Miss Army Reserve Recruiting of 1962” became Hanoi Jane in 1972 and Workout Jane by 1982), but he’s forced the pieces, hard, into place.