Henry Fonda
| Henry Fonda | ||
 Fonda in Warlock (1959) | ||
| Background information | ||
| Born as: | Henry Jaynes Fonda | |
| Born | May 16, 1905 Grand Island, Nebraska, U.S. | |
| Died | Aug 12, 1982 - age 76 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | |
| Alma Mater: | University of Minnesota | |
| Spouse(s): | Margaret Sullavan (1931 - 1933) divorced Frances Seymour Brokaw (1936 - 1950) died Susan Blanchard (1950 - 1956) divorced Afdera Franchetti (1957 - 1961) divorced Shirlee Mae Adams (1965 - ) | |
| Children: | 3, including Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda | |
| Relatives: | Bridget Fonda (paternal granddaughter) Troy Garity (maternal grandson) | |
| Occupation: | Actor | |
| Years active | 1928–1982 | |
Henry Jaynes Fonda (✦May 16, 1905 – †August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics.
Born and raised in Nebraska, Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. He rose to film stardom with performances in films like Jezebel (1938), Jesse James (1939), and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). His career further progressed with his portrayal of Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 1941, Fonda starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded Westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's Western Fort Apache (1948). After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1956, at the age of fifty-one, he played the title role as the thirty-eight-year-old Manny Balestrero in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Wrong Man. In 1957, he starred as Juror 8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also the co-producer of this film, won the BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.
Later in his career, Fonda moved into darker roles, such as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), a box office success in Europe, now regarded as one of the best Westerns of all time. He also played in lighter-hearted fare such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball and My Name is Nobody with Terence Hill, but also often played important military figures, such as a colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but was too ill to attend the ceremony. He died from heart disease a few months later.
Fonda was the patriarch of a family of actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity. In 1999 he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Screen Legends of the Classic Hollywood Era (stars with a film debut by 1950) by the American Film Institute.
Death and legacy
Fonda died at his Los Angeles home on August 12, 1982, from heart disease. Fonda's wife, Shirlee, his daughter Jane, and his son Peter were at his side that day.He suffered from prostate cancer, but this did not directly cause his death and was noted only as a concurrent ailment on his death certificate.
Henry Fonda requested that no funeral be held, and his body was cremated. President Ronald Reagan, a former actor himself, hailed Fonda as "a true professional dedicated to excellence in his craft. He graced the screen with a sincerity and accuracy which made him a legend."
The home where Fonda was born in 1905 is preserved at The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska.
Fonda is widely recognized as one of the Hollywood greats of the classic era. On the centenary of his birth, May 16, 2005, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) honored Fonda with a marathon of his films. Also in May 2005, the United States Post Office released a 37-cent postage stamp with an artist's drawing of Fonda as part of their "Hollywood legends" series. The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, originally known as the Carter DeHaven Music Box, was named for the actor in 1985 by the Nederlander Organization.
In popular culture
In Joseph Heller's satirical novel Catch-22, there is a running joke that fictional character 'Major Major Major Major' resembles Henry Fonda. Philip D. Beidler comments that "one of the novel's great absurd jokes is the character's bewildering resemblance to Henry Fonda". Taking into account when Catch-22 was written, this most likely refers to Fonda circa 1955, when he starred in the film Mister Roberts.
Filmography
- Wikipedia article: Henry Fonda filmography and Theater
External links
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