Jane Fonda On Her Love Life: Brando Was 'Disappointing', Regrets Not Nailing Marvin Gaye
Jane Fonda dishing on her love life is one of the funniest and honest things ever. The 86-year-old actress and activist always knows how to delight, and her 2020 interview with The New York Times definitely did not disappoint.
Jane consented to play a game of "Confirm or Deny" with Maureen Dowd, and the results were highly informative.
When asked about her dalliance with Marlon Brando, with whom she costarred in 1966's The Chase, Jane merely described the actor as "disappointing." Of course, the fun didn't stop there.
Maureen asked, "Your greatest regret is that you never had sex with Che Guevara," which Jane denied. She then shared a surprising detail instead, "No, I don't think about him. Who I do think about, and what is a great regret is Marvin Gaye."
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It turns out that the celebrated soul legend was pretty interested in Jane back in the day, but she was married.
This story first appeared on LittleThings in September 2020.
Jane explained, "He wanted to and I didn't. I was married to Tom [Hayden]. I was meeting a lot of performers to try to do concerts for Tom and the woman who was helping me do that introduced me to Marvin Gaye."
Jane and Tom got married in 1973, and their relationship lasted for 17 years before they called it quits.
With such a juicy detail dropped, Maureen pressed for more. "Please tell me his pickup line included the words 'sexual healing.'"
Sadly, no. "I needed some but he didn't say that, no. But then I read, apparently he had my picture on his refrigerator. I didn't find that out until later, after he was dead."
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This isn't the first time Jane's been candid about her romantic and sexual life. In 2018, she told People that she felt like she let the men in her life define her for far too long.
"Up until my sixties, I was to an extent, defined by the men in my life."
Jane was referring to romantic partners as well as the men she was related to, like her father, Henry Fonda. She says the lessons of her childhood extended far into her life:
"I was brought up to please. I wanted my father to love me so I would turn myself into a pretzel to be what he wanted me to be, not necessarily what I already was. It took me getting into my sixties, and then I began to become who I was supposed to be all along."
Jane was 28 years old when she married her first husband, director Roger Vadim. Jane went on to star in one of Roger's most celebrated cult classics, Barbarella, in 1968. The two also welcomed their daughter, Vanessa, in the same year that the movie was released. Jane and Roger split up in 1973.
Jane met her second husband, Tom Hayden, while she was still married. The two got married at Jane's home only three days after her divorce from Roger was finalized, and Jane gave birth to their son, Troy, around six months after their wedding. The two were known for their activism, especially their civil rights advocacy in the United States.
Jane and Tom also unofficially adopted 14-year-old Mary Luana Williams, whose parents were members of the Black Panthers. Mary moved in with the family in 1982. She's grown up to become an author and an activist in her own right and even wrote about her famous adopted mom in her book, The Lost Daughter: A Memoir.
Jane married again only a year after her divorce, this time to her third husband, media mogul Ted Turner. The two got married in 1991 and stayed together until 2001, when Jane realized she needed to put herself first:
"He was sexy. He was brilliant. He had two million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay. But there was this angel on my shoulder … it was hard to even hear her voice, [saying,] 'If you stay, you will die without ever becoming who you can be. You will not really be authentic.'"
Jane has definitely gone on to be quite successful since 1991. She's starred in several films, authored books, and currently costars with Lily Tomlin on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie. In 2018, she told Town & Country that the job is a dream:
"I feel guilty that it is so much fun. I am having so much fun that it is hard to even call it work. I love Lily [Tomlin]. I deeply admire her. I go to work every day with a genius. That's number one. Number two, I love having a regular job at 81, which is more than I can even believe."
She added, "I keep pinching myself. I just love having a steady job — going through those studio gates every day is so great. We have a fabulous crew: a lot of women, a lot of people of color; a lot of the directors are women and then the writers are just wonderful."