Fonda then began to star in European films that she interspersed with her Hollywood projects. For instance, in 1964 she starred in a French production titled The Love Cage as well as La Ronde, which was directed by Roger Vadim, whom she married the following year. After strong performances in hits such as Cat Ballou (1965), Any Wednesday (1966), and Barefoot in the Park (1967), she shocked the film industry by starring in her director/husband's erotic sexual fantasy movie Barbarella (1968). The film was no masterpiece, but it was an amusing romp that has since become something of a cult favorite.
From a career perspective, however, Jane Fonda's credibility as a serious actress was seriously undermined by her flamboyant success in Vadim's film. She quickly restored her respect in Hollywood and gained an Oscar nomination for her performance in the bleak drama They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). She followed that critical success with yet another much-admired performance, this time in the hit Klute (1971), winning her first Best Actress Academy Award. It was to be the last box-office winner she would have for the next six years as Jane Fonda expanded her outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam.
She went so far as to travel to North Vietnam and allow herself to be photographed sitting behind an antiaircraft gun. Known as Hanoi Jane by American soldiers in South Vietnam, there were serious calls in the United States to try her for treason. Nothing came of such threats because America was not technically at war with North Vietnam. During these emotionally charged years, Jane Fonda either starred in or helped produce, write, and direct a number of antiwar documentaries, such as Jean Luc Godard's Tout va bien (1972), Free the Army (1972), and Introduction to the Enemy (1974).
When Jane Fonda returned to commercial filmmaking, it was to appear in an all-star version of The Blue Bird (1976), a joint Russian and American film venture that bombed. Finally, with Vietnam less prominent in the American psyche, Jane Fonda starred in an impressive number of hit films that dealt with serious political, cultural, and social issues, but she did so within the bounds of solidly commercial entertainment. Movies such as Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), Julia (1977), Coming Home (1978)—for which she won her second Best Actress Oscar—The Electric Horseman (1979), The China Syndrome (1979), and Nine to Five (1981) turned Jane Fonda into one of the most bankable female stars in Hollywood during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The emotional highlight of her career was surely working with her father in a film for the very first and last time. The movie, which she produced, was On Golden Pond (1981), and the elder, ailing Jane Fonda won the Best Actor Oscar just a short time before he died.
During much of the 1980s, Jane Fonda became involved in producing exercise/fitness books and videotapes that became huge best-sellers. Her biggest success in this area was The Jane Fonda Workout, which was at the top of best-seller lists for more than two years. Her acting during the mid- to late 1980s was limited but effective. She won an Emmy for her TV performance in The Dollmaker (1984) and was nominated for an Oscar when she played an alcoholic in The Morning After (1986). Jane Fonda geared up to make more movies at the end of the decade, when her own production company, Jane Fonda Films, produced her first film in three years, Old Gringo (1989), in which she plays a virgin schoolteacher in a tale about the strange disappearance of writer Ambrose Bierce in Mexico.
The film was an odd literary and political western, and the result, despite strong performances from GREGORY PECK and Jimmy Smits, was scrambled and unconvincing. That same year, she played opposite ROBERT DE NIRO in Stanley and Iris, a tale in which she teaches De Niro how to overcome his illiteracy and his shyness. The picture had a weak script but strong performances. Divorced from her longtime husband, former radical activist and California state senator Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda married media mogul Ted Turner, but the couple split in 2001.
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1. Don Ameche was one of the leading men of 20th Century Fox
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