First published 2011
Patricia Bosworth strips away the superwoman image to expose Jane Fonda in all her complexity. The biographer traces Fonda's journey from a troubled Hollywood childhood through her transformation into a screen sensation and Academy Award winner. Bosworth examines how Fonda risked her career by protesting the Vietnam War and traveling to Hanoi, shocking audiences worldwide. The book follows Fonda's evolution into a Hollywood feminist who funded her husband Tom Hayden's political ambitions through wildly successful exercise videos that sparked a fitness revolution and generated millions. Bosworth also explores Fonda's surprising reinvention as Ted Turner's wife, when she appeared to abandon both her principles and her acting career for a life of privilege. Through meticulous research, the seasoned biographer reveals how deep insecurity, charisma, courage, and ambition combined to create one of America's most polarizing public figures. Bosworth shows how Fonda's personal battles with achievement, relationships, and motherhood reflected the broader struggles of her generation of women.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, gender-studies, american, feminism, biography-memoir, 21st-century, activism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-struggles, reinvention
Setting: Hanoi, Hollywood
Period: Vietnam War, Fitness Revolution
608 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt