14 Facts About Jane Fonda: More Than a Hollywood Icon

Jane's mother, Frances Ford Seymour, suffered from severe depression and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. When Jane was 12, her mother took her own life there. The family initially told Jane and her brother Peter that she had died of a heart attack; Jane only learned the truth later from a magazine.

Jane's father, Henry Fonda, was a legendary actor but also emotionally distant and critical. Jane spent her youth seeking his approval. Only near the end of his life did they act together in On Golden Pond (1981), in which their real father-daughter relationship echoed through the script, and which won him his only competitive Oscar.

In 1968 Jane starred in Barbarella, a bizarre sci-fi sex satire directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim (the same man who made Brigitte Bardot famous). Her opening scene? A zero-gravity striptease in space. The film flopped on release but later became a cult classic and made Jane the sex goddess of the late '60s.

Jane wasn't just an actress but a fierce political activist. In the '70s she opposed the Vietnam War and racism and campaigned for Native American rights. She was monitored by the FBI and ended up on President Nixon's 'enemies list'.

In 1972 Jane Fonda traveled to North Vietnam and was photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun used against American planes. When the photo came out, the backlash was enormous. Many Americans called her a traitor, and some veterans still haven't forgiven her. Jane has repeatedly called that photo the biggest mistake of her life.

In 1970 Jane was arrested at Cleveland airport on suspicion of drug smuggling. She spent a night in jail, and her famous mugshot with raised fist became iconic. The 'drugs' turned out to be vitamins, and she has always maintained the arrest was politically motivated.

Jane's love life was intense. Roger Vadim (1965-1973), the French director who made her a sex symbol. Tom Hayden (1973-1990), a radical left-wing activist and politician, with whom she had a son. Ted Turner (1991-2001), the billionaire founder of CNN, the complete opposite of her previous husband. None of the marriages lasted.

Jane Fonda has spoken openly about her years-long struggle with bulimia, which began in her teens under the pressure of beauty standards. Only in her early forties did she manage to stop, afraid it would kill her.

In the '80s her fitness videos dominated the market. Jane Fonda's Workout (1982) became one of the best-selling home videos of all time and helped launch the home video boom. She donated much of the proceeds to political causes.

In the early '70s Jane publicly supported the Black Panther Party and raised money for their legal defense. This made her even more controversial and reinforced the image among critics that she was anti-American.

Jane has said she got breast implants in the late '80s because of her insecurities, and later had them removed, embracing her natural body.

After her long political period she returned to acting, but she never stopped protesting. In her eighties she was arrested multiple times at her weekly 'Fire Drill Fridays' climate protests in Washington.

Jane became a feminist icon, but she has spoken openly about years of insecurity about her looks and identity. She has said that she only truly learned to love herself later in life, well after sixty.

Jane Fonda won two Oscars for Best Actress (Klute and Coming Home) but has always remained critical of the superficiality of the film industry. In her eighties she found new success with the long-running Netflix series Grace and Frankie.