Henry Fonda

Actor

  • Born: May 16, 1905
  • Birthplace: Grand Island, Nebraska
  • Died: August 12, 1982
  • Place of death: Los Angeles, California

American actor

Fonda was a celebrated stage and screen actor whose persona embodied the quintessential American man of integrity, honesty, and courage. He displayed these ideals in roles that included Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, the title character in Mister Roberts, and portrayals of notables such as Abraham Lincoln and Clarence Darrow.

Areas of achievement Film, theater and entertainment, television

Early Life

Henry Fonda was the only son of William Bruce and Herberta Fonda. His seventeenth century Italian ancestors established the town of Fonda, in upper New York State, but Fonda grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where his father owned a printing company. After graduating from Omaha Central High School, where he exhibited talent in athletics, art, and writing, he studied journalism at the University of Minnesota but left after his sophomore year.

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Despite his shy nature, the young Fonda was persuaded by family friend Dorothy Brando, actor Marlon Brando’s mother, to perform a leading role at the Omaha Community Playhouse in 1925. After this successful debut he determined to pursue acting. He remained with the playhouse for three seasons, winning ultimate approval from his conservative father as the title character in Merton of the Movies. Touring Lincoln impersonator George Billings accepted a sketch Fonda had written, and, subsequently, Fonda performed in it as Billings’s onstage foil for a 1927 summer vaudeville tour. Returning for the playhouse’s 1927-1928 season, Fonda gratefully accepted the salaried job of assistant director. As well as designing sets, he also played opposite Dorothy Brando in Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon.

In 1928, Fonda left home for the east. With one hundred dollars, he secured a room-and-board job in Dennis, Massachusetts, with the Cape Playhouse as third assistant stage manager and actor when needed. Later he joined the University Players Guild in Falmouth and eventually excelled in acting roles over five summers through 1932. From 1929 to 1931 the young actor directed, designed, and performed roles (like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz) at the National Junior Theatre in Washington, D.C. Touring groups and summer stock were his training ground.

Life’s Work

After making his 1929 Broadway debut with a small acting part, Fonda augmented meager theater work in Depression-era New York with summer stock. He had performed with Margaret Sullivan in University Players Guild productions. They later married but soon divorced.

Following small roles in New York, Fonda, now twenty-nine years old, appeared in a 1934 comedy skit with Imogene Coca in the mildly successful Leonard Sillman’s New Faces of 1934. Leland Hayward became his agent. Through Hayward, Fonda was summoned to Hollywood, California, in 1934, meeting film producer Walter Wanger, who gave him a contract at the surprisingly large salary he had demanded. Next, actress June Walker recruited him as her Broadway costar in The Farmer Takes a Wife (1934-1935). Critically praised for an engaging masculine performance in the moderately successful production, Fonda made his motion-picture debut in the 1935 film version of the production. Critics applauded Fonda’s sincerity and simplicity. After several mediocre screenplays, Fonda continued in New York State summer stock and performed in several short-lived Broadway plays.

After marrying a second time, Fonda returned to Hollywood, making ten pictures from 1937 to 1939. After gaining particularly favorable reviews in four of these films directed by John Ford (Jesse James, The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, Drums Along the Mohawk, and Young Mr. Lincoln), he was cast by Ford as Tom Joad in the 1940 film based on John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. The role sparked critical kudos proclaiming Fonda as a superbly graceful, suffering Everyman fighting against exploitation. The role earned for him a 1940 Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Regrettably, the success of this film failed to bring top studio roles, and he was contractually obligated by studio producer Darryl F. Zanuck to take on undistinguished films. There were exceptions: two worthy comedies displayed Fonda’s comic abilities (The Male Animal and Preston Sturges’s successful farce The Lady Eve). In one serious drama, The Ox-Bow Incident, Fonda’s performance was considered exceptional. His daughter, Jane, was born in 1937, followed by a son, Peter, in 1940. Jane became an acclaimed actor and was known for her political activism. Peter became an acclaimed actor and director as well.

During World War II, Fonda joined the U.S. Navy and saw active service at sea, rising from an enlisted seaman to officer and earning a Bronze Star with a presidential citation when discharged in 1945. Completing six more films, Fonda visited New York in 1947 and was cast by stage director Joshua Logan in the title role in Mister Roberts. Greeted by critical and popular success, Fonda won the 1947-1948 season Antoinette Perry Best Actor Award for his portrayal of a combat-hungry lieutenant aboard a Pacific wartime supply ship. The actor repeated the role in a 1951 touring company and in the 1955 film version.

Subsequent 1950’s Broadway appearances in Point of No Return and The Caine Mutiny Court Martial earned positive reviews and audience approval. Back in Hollywood, Fonda gathered critical admiration for Twelve Angry Men (1957) and Mister Roberts. Following leading screenplay roles, Fonda returned to Broadway as Anne Bancroft’s costar in William Gibson’s successful two-character comedy Two for the Seesaw (1958). Fonda thought his role was not well realized.

After a hiatus that included television appearances like that in the 1959 series The Deputy, Fonda returned to Hollywood to competently portray small or supporting roles, often as political and military figures ranging from a U.S. president in Fail Safe to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in Midway. Most screenplays in the 1960’s brought him little recognition, but his stage appearance in 1974’s one-man drama Clarence Darrow (later successfully televised) reawakened tributes from critics and audiences. A demanding five-city tour ensued, eventually causing his collapse from exhaustion and his receiving a pacemaker to correct a heart disorder.

In 1978, Fonda received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. In 1981 he won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in On Golden Pond as a crusty old father who makes peace with his estranged daughter, played by real-life daughter Jane Fonda. Although in ill health, Fonda finished the film and received the award before his death in 1982.

In his personal life Fonda was considered an emotionally distant husband and father, although he was respected as a highly accomplished actor. He was married five times: first to actress Margaret Sullivan in 1931; in 1936 to socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw (mother of Jane and Peter Fonda), who committed suicide in 1950; in 1950 to Susan Blanchard; in 1957 to Afdera Franchetti; and from 1965 to Shirlee Adams. Despite rifts, he was proud of his two children.

Significance

Fonda’s acting career spanned more than fifty years, from the late 1920’s to 1981. During that time he appeared with and supported leading screen performers of the time such as Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Janet Gaynor, Sylvia Sydney, and Tyrone Power. Films like The Grapes of Wrath have become classics in part because of his acting. In his best roles he epitomized an ideal American Western or midwestern hero, reserved and courageous. Often, like the actor himself, his performances demonstrated rock-solid beliefs about racial equality and the needs of the underdog and underprivileged.

Fonda was a master of controlled, restrained, and naturalistic screen and stage acting. His acting technique is worthy of study by students and practitioners.

Bibliography

Collier, Peter. The Fondas: A Hollywood Dynasty. New York: Putnam, 1991. Lively account of the Fonda family’s personal and professional lives, with some discussion of the family’s interpersonal troubles.

Fonda, Jane. Jane Fonda: My Life So Far. New York: Random House, 2006. Informative autobiography detailing Jane Fonda’s life, career, and causes. She frankly discusses her relationship with her father. Includes index, filmography.

Fonda, Peter. Don’t Tell Dad: A Memoir. New York: Hyperion, 1998. Peter Fonda discusses his career and family history and details his difficult relationship with his cold, distant father.

Sweeney, Kevin. Henry Fonda: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992. Best source book on Fonda with excellent biography, bibliography, chronology, and filmography. Includes sections about his work in all media. Index.

Teichmann, Howard. Fonda. New York: New American Library, 1981. Interesting, well-detailed, authorized autobiography, told in the third person. Covers the actor’s life and career through his 1981 Academy Award performance in On Golden Pond. Illustrations and index.

Thomas, Tony. The Films of Henry Fonda. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1983. Well-illustrated work covering Fonda’s eighty-five films. Includes production information, cast listing, plot synopsis, major critical reaction, and commercial results. This introductory biography encompasses the actor’ s work on stage and television.

Weisel, A. “Everybody’s All-American.” Premiere, June 18, 2005, pp.110-114. Roundtable discussion with family and colleagues of Fonda, commenting on his life, values, and professional achievements, twenty-three years after his death.

1901-1940: 1934-1938: Production Code Gives Birth to Screwball Comedy.

1941-1970: 1964-1969: Leone Renovates the Western Film Genre.