Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda
Birthday	Tuesday, May 16, 1905
Birthplace	Grand Island, Nebraska, U.S.
Died	Thursday, August 12, 1982
Occupation	Actor

Fonda, Henry

(1905–1982) movie/stage actor; born in Grand Island, Nebr. (father of Jane and Peter Fonda). His involvement with the Omaha Community Playhouse led to Broadway and a film career in which his self-effacing manner and dry, flat tones projected honesty and decency. His movie debut in The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935) led to more than 100 screen appearances, culminating with his Oscar-winning role in On Golden Pond (1981). He also appeared occasionally on Broadway, as in Mister Roberts (1948). Married five times, he was said to be a moody, remote man and did not always enjoy the best of relationships with his children.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Fonda, Henry

Born May 16, 1905, in Grand Island, Neb. American motion-picture actor.

Fonda studied at the University of Minnesota. In 1925 he began acting in the theater, and in 1935 he made his film debut. Although appearing in commercial films, Fonda sought to go beyond Hollywood’s standards and portray living characters in a way that would reveal their complex inner life (for example, in the film Jezebel, 1938). The main themes of Fonda’s work are the affirmation of spiritual values and the worth of human beings, the need for a man to fulfill his responsibility as a citizen uncompromisingly, and the struggle for justice. These themes have been best developed in his roles as the peasant Marco in Blockade (1938), Abraham Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), and the young American Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Other outstanding roles were in the films The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), War and Peace (playing Pierre Bezukhov in an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel), Twelve Angry Men (1957), and The Best Man (1964). Fonda’s art combines publicist passion with precision of social characterization and profound psychological analysis.

REFERENCE

Sokol’skaia, A. L. “Genri Fonda.” In Aktery zarubezhnogo kino. Leningrad-Moscow, 1965.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Fonda was estranged from his father for much of his life, but said they grew closer before Henry Fonda died in 1982.

'Easy Rider' star, writer Peter Fonda dead at 79

'' The first time I saw Henry Fonda was in a film called Mr Roberts set in the US navy and I did see Twelve Angry Men.

Reprising the role of juror number 8; Shirley Valentine star Tom Conti returns to Coventry to star in Twelve Angry Men. He talks to CATHERINE VONLEDEBUR

Ironically, argues Bosworth, despite Fonda's fierce independence and feminist beliefs, these incarnations were defined by a desire to please the men in her life--a direct result of her troubled relation-ship with her standoffish father, actor Henry Fonda. An actress groomed for stardom by her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim, Jane transformed herself into infamous antiwar protester, "Hanoi Jane," during her marriage to political activist Tom Hayden and played the philanthropic trophy wife for CNN founder Ted Turner.

Jane Fonda: the private life of a public woman

The movie version starring Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn is 30 years old.

`Golden' opportunity; `On Golden Pond' continues to make impact 3 decades later

Pathe Freres colouredblack and white films Films stars JoanCrawford, Robert Donat, Hylda Baker, Joseph Cotten and Henry Fonda were born.

In 1905, the year Mabel was born..

Sidney Lumet's legal drama, starring Henry Fonda, Lee J Cobb, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam and Jack Klugman star.

BEST OF DIGITAL FILMS

Mister Roberts Five, Today, 12.35pm Henry Fonda (above) reprised his acclaimed stage role in this World War II comedy drama, playing an officer on a cargo ship who longs to be on the front line but is denied at every turn.

FILMS OF THE WEEK

Fonda, the son of legendary actor Henry Fonda, has been part of the "Love Ride" for more than 25 years, as it grew from a few bikers to thousands motoring up the freeway.

Peter Fonda motors on 40 years after Easy Rider

Her subjects included Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Leonard Bernstein, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Salvador Dali and Orson Welles.

'First' Female Photog for AP Dies at 95

During his time at Warner's and later at Columbia, Carey starred with actors including Gary Cooper in "Springfield Rifle," Henry Fonda in "Mister Roberts," Peter Fonda in "Fighting Mad" and Tyrone Power in "The Long Gray Line."

Phil Carey

In which classic movie does Henry Fonda play juror No 8?

Quiz of the Day

Apart from his marriage to Hepburn, whom he met in 1954 when they both performed in a play in New York, Ferrer was best known for his roles in Brave Bulls, a 1951 film on the life of a bullfighter, in Lili, a 1953 romance in which he played a lame puppeteer opposite Leslie Caron, The Sun Also Rises and in the 1956 epic War and Peace, in which he played prince Andrei Bolkonsky opposite Henry Fonda and Hepburn.

Mel Ferrer mourned