"I give off sparks" (The Guardian interview w/Jane Fonda)

[Up2Late]

"I give off sparks"

Jane Fonda, Hollywood star, workout queen and political activist, has provided an iconic image for each decade since the 60s. In this exclusive interview, she reflects on a lifetime of high-profile campaigning, her three failed marriages, and reveals why she hates the name Hanoi Jane

Read an extract from Jane Fonda's autobiography

Emma Brockes
Monday April 4, 2005
The Guardian

Visitors to Jane Fonda's loft in downtown Atlanta are presented, on arrival, with two versions of the actress. On the left-hand wall, nine huge prints of her face from the time when her hair occupied a different time zone to her body; on the right, across a loft space the size of a bowling alley, a library of theoretical texts devoted to sociology, theology and what she calls the "paradigm of hierarchical patriarchy". (To the side is a vestibule which, she will explain, she designed herself to reflect the female reproductive system.) In the middle is a wall of glass overlooking the Atlanta skyline. When Fonda walks in, it is with a tense, beady look that seems to dare one to take sides; you superficial dupe, have you come here expecting a movie star?

What to make of Jane Fonda? A woman who, for the last four decades of the 20th century, was as surely indexed with the times as hemlines and house prices, who provided an iconic image for every decade and who, whatever she did, she meant, and screw the consequences; for many women, the memory of her all-in-one leotard and belt combo will never be erased. Today she is in a green towelling gym top, hair thatched mercilessly under a tight baseball cap, which fans of Barbarella will see as the unwelcome stylistic intrusion of all those crusty old activists. At 67 she is luminous without makeup. She sips herbal tea. "When I start down a path that I know is the right path, I go with all of me," she says in that Fonda drawl that sounds, these days, more ironic than it is. "I have a lot of energy. I give off sparks. If it's anti-war, it's going to be very visible and if it's an exercise video it's going to be... "

"$17m."

"Exactly, the biggest seller of all time. I just do it big. I don't think about doing it big; it just becomes ... visible." After six decades of unhappiness, eating disorders, bad marriages and low confidence, her true identity has finally become apparent to her. She is, she says, now "whole", "authentic" and "good in my skin". She has become a Christian. It is a beautiful apartment, I say. "It is a good venue for fundraising," says Fonda stiffly. "You can fit 80 people in it."

(more at link above)

[radwriter0555]

1. I met Jane in February. Fabulous woman who learns from her life

as she lives it.

[Straight Shooter]

2. I see she's as humble now as she's always been.

:eyes:

[thebigidea]

3. gawd, how pompous. I think I see why some hate her so much:

... its damn easy to do. Blegh.

Do people who are authentic have to keep talking about how authentic they are to a spectrum of media outlets?

And why do I get the feeling that behind the interview facade, she's still just as unhappy?