At 83, Jane Fonda has made it clear she’s not slowing down. While you’ve most recently seen her star as Grace Hanson in Netflix’s hit series Grace and Frankie, her acting career has spanned six decades, recently earning her a Golden Globes Cecil B. deMille Award, a lifetime achievement award for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”
The result of spending a half a century on the big screen? An estimated net worth of $200 million. Fonda was practically bred for success from the start. Her father, Henry Fonda, was an Academy Award-winning actor, while her mother, Frances Ford Seymour, was a Canadian-born Hollywood socialite.
But her upbringing was notoriously difficult. Fonda was only 12 years old when her mother took her own life in a mental institution. Her father initially told her the death was due to a heart attack, but she stumbled upon the truth a year later while reading a magazine. Not long after her mother’s death, Fonda developed an eating disorder, which she struggled with for years.
Fonda then attended boarding school in New York, followed by two years at the prestigious Vassar College. Although she dropped out early (and regrets it), the bright-eyed student found her way to Paris as a model.
It wasn’t until the 50s that Fonda decided to follow in her father’s footsteps and fully commit to a career in acting. Here’s how she earned her insanely high net worth along the way, earning a name as one of the greatest entertainers of all time.
Fonda starred in her first production with her father.
Given her father’s successful acting career, it makes sense that Fonda got her start with a bit of help. In 1955, Fonda was just 17 when she made her first stage appearance in an Omaha Community Theatre production, The Country Girl, alongside her father.
It was also during this time that she began taking classes with legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg, director of The Actors Studio in New York City. She sat next to none other than Marilyn Monroe in the back, both of them horribly intimidated to do anything. But she eventually became more comfortable, and Strasberg told her that she had “real talent.” From there, everything changed in Fonda’s eyes, who finally felt she had a “focus” in her life, she revealed in a video for the Oprah Network.
And her acting career took off quickly.
In 1960, Fonda’s career really started to bloom. She took home a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in the play There Was A Little Girl and made her first film appearance in the romantic comedy Tall Story. She starred as a cheerleader chasing the heart of a star basketball player, played by actor Anthony Perkins.
She continued to juggle film and theatre in the years to come, starring in notable movies, like The Chapman Report (1962), Barbarella (1968), and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969).
She won her first Academy Award in 1971 for Best Actress in Klute (1971), and another in 1978 for Coming Home (1978). In 1980, Fonda joined Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5—arguably one of her most remembered films, grossing more than $103 million worldwide. She also won an Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981), in which she co-starred with her father.
Fonda continued to win nominations for multiple awards throughout her lifetime, and in January, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced that the actress earned one of the industry’s highest levels of recognition: the Cicil B deMille Award. The lifetime achievement award, which she’s to accept on February 28 at the 2021 Golden Globes, honors Fonda’s legendary career.
She spear-headed a workout craze.
Despite all of her success in acting, Fonda had other plans for success, like revolutionizing the fitness industry. For years, Fonda’s exercise of choice was actually dancing. “I like ballet and what it does for me—the slowness, the rigor, the sense of creativity while I move,” she told Vogue in 1979. After injuring her ankle while filming The China Syndrome in in 1979, Fonda shifted gears and started doing aerobics and strength exercises with instructor Leni Cazden.
She eventually opened her aerobics studio, Jane Fonda’s Workout, in Los Angeles, which would go on to launch her “multi-million dollar fitness empire.” Fonda published Jane Fonda’s Workout Book in 1981, which quickly became a bestseller, and released her first at-home aerobics tape, Workout, the following year. But she wasn’t too excited about the idea at first. “I said, ‘No way—what is it going to do to my film career?’” she recalled in 1992.
But then, she completely transformed the fitness landscape. In total, she created 23 home exercise videos, 13 audio recordings, and five books—selling 16 million copies worldwide. The original Workout is still the best-selling home exercise video of all time.
She won millions in stocks from a divorce settlement.
Fonda has been married three times throughout her life, and all of her unions ended in divorce. She was with her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim, for eight years (they had a daughter, Vanessa) before separating in 1973.
The same year she divorced from Vadim, Fonda married again to activist Tom Hayden, whom she stayed with for 17 years. She helped fund his political campaigns around the U.S. They had a son, Troy Hayden and unofficially adopted a 15-year-old, Mary Luana Williams.
In 1990, Fonda and Hayden parted ways, and one year later she married again to cable-television tycoon Ted Turner (yep, the billionaire founder of CNN). They divorced in 2001, and Fonda received anywhere between $70 to $100 million in stocks and a 2,500 acre ranch from their settlement. (She also sold her engagement ring for nearly $20,000.)
To this day, Fonda is still acting.
Fonda’s separation from Hayden prompted her retirement from acting when she was 54. She continued to work on her fitness empire, and spent the ‘90s releasing new books and tapes.
But she finally returned to the big screen in 2005 alongside Jennifer Lopez in Monster-in-Law. Fonda also went on to star in Georgia Rule (2007) and Book Club (2018) while she continued to write. In 2013, she released her memoir My Life So Far, which became a New York Times bestseller.
Now, 65 years after she starred in her first play, Fonda is still acting. Most recently, you can spot her alongside one of her best friends, Lily Tomlin, in Netflix’s longest-running series Grace and Frankie, which was renewed for its seventh and final season. You may have to wait until 2022 to enjoy it, but Parton is set to reunite with her 9 to 5 friends, making it well worth the wait.
But she’s fought for what she believes in along the way.
Fonda is an activist at heart—but it hasn’t always done her reputation a favor. She first created quite the controversy when she voiced her disapproval of the Vietnam War in the 60s. You’ve likely seen the notorious photograph of her 1972 trip to the capital of Vietnam (Hanoi), where she posed in the gunner’s seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun and sparked outrage across the U.S. She later apologized in a 1988 televised interview with Barbara Walters, calling her actions “thoughtless and careless.”
But years later, Fonda is still making waves by fighting for what she believes in—from speaking out against the war in Iraq and the Dakota Access Pipeline to becoming a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.
In December 2020, she made headlines again while protesting climate change in Washington D.C. (and getting arrested for it with Tomlin, naturally). The actress had to halt her in-person protests due to the coronavirus pandemic, but she has continued to hold her Fire Drill Fridays in partnership with non-profit organization Greenpeace virtually.
Fonda also released her latest book What Can I Do? in September 2020 with the goal of spreading awareness about climate change. All of the net proceeds from the book will go to Greenpeace.
Fonda also used her wealth to create the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health and the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential to focus on teen pregnancy prevention, health education, and young female empowerment.
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Currently an assistant editor at Prevention.com, Nicol is a Manhattan-based journalist who specializes in health, wellness, beauty, fashion, business, and lifestyle. Her work has appeared in Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Houston Chronicle, Business Insider, INSIDER, Everyday Health, and more. When Nicol isn't writing, she loves trying new workout classes, testing out the latest face mask, and traveling. Follow her on Instagram for the latest on health, wellness, and lifestyle.
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