Why Jane Fonda almost quit Tinseltown after her first movie and why she stayed

Hollywood legend Jane Fonda has lived most of her life in the public eye. As the daughter of acting great Henry Fonda, and sister and aunt to Peter Fonda and Bridget Fonda, it seems she was destined for a career in the limelight.

However, things almost took a different turn for the Barbarella star. Fonda reveals that she nearly quit performing after her first film.

The 87 year old activist and icon recently opened up to Variety magazine, explaining how some cruel words from her director before filming her first movie, Tall Story, nearly led her to walk away from acting altogether.

“I didn’t enjoy the experience. And before we started shooting, Josh Logan, the director-producer, said to me, ‘You should have your jaw broken so your cheeks aren’t so puffy,’ ” she told Variety.

“Stuff like that really builds a girl’s confidence.”

However, director Edward Dmytryk offered her a role in 1962’s Walk on the Wild Side, the chance to play Kitty Twist helped change her mind about alternative career paths.

“She was a real character,” she said.

“She rode around in a boxcar and then she becomes a hooker in a high-class brothel run by Barbara Stanwyck.”

“And I had a blast.”

What followed was an impressive decades-long career with major roles across film and television. However, despite her success, Fonda doesn’t consider herself an icon.

During a previous interview on Happy Hour with Jane Fonda, the Hollywood actress opened up about her true feelings in regard to being called an “icon,” sharing that she’s often “reluctant” to refer to herself as one.

 

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In the short clip shared on her Instagram page, the Grace and Frankie star was asked if she considered herself an icon, to which she nonchalantly responded with “who cares?”

“When I’m at night sitting on my toilet do I feel like an icon? No,” she explained.

“But people tell me I’m an icon, I’ll take it, I’ve been called worse.”