OH!
Henry Fonda's
Personal Quotes
"I don't want to just sell war bonds. I want to be a sailor."
"I hope you won't be disappointed. You see I am not a very interesting person. I haven't ever done anything except be other people. I ain't really Henry Fonda! Nobody could be. Nobody could have that much integrity."
"I'm not that pristine pure, I guess I've broken as many rules as the next feller. But I reckon my face looks honest enough and if people buy it, Hallelujah."
"Baby it out. That's an old marble shooter's expression for approaching your target cautiosly instead of trying to take it out with one shot."
"Next to Clint Eastwood's father, he personally had done more for Clint Eastwood than anyone else." - about Sergio Leone.
I'm not really Henry Fonda. Nobody could have that much integrity.
[speaking in 1978] "I guess I go overboard to avoid taking credit for the image I have. That's why it's easier to live with myself. I don't feel I'm totally a man of integrity."
"If there is something in my eyes, a kind of honesty in the face, then I guess you could say that's the man I'd like to be, the man I want to be."
"I look like my father. To this day, when I walk past a mirror and see my reflection in it, my first impression is: That's my father. There is a strong Fonda look."
[on Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda, 1976] "I didn't help or discourage them or lead them by the hand. I'm not trying to set myself up as a good father, because I wasn't a good father. But I think I knew instinctively that if they did make it, they would like to know they'd done it on their own. I recognise all the problems my children have had, and I don't claim any credit for what they've become. They've become what they are in spite of me."
"I can't articulate about the Method because I never studied it. I don't mean to suggest that I have any feelings one way or the other about it. I don't know what the Method is and I don't care what the Method is. Everybody's got a method. Everybody can't articulate about their method, and I can't, if I have a method - and Jane sometimes says that I use the Method, that is, the capital letter Method, without being aware of it. Maybe I do, it doesn't matter."
"I've been close to Bette Davis for thirty-eight years - and I have the cigarette burns to prove it."
"It has to do with the fact that Ford, for all his greatness, is an Irish egomaniac, as anyone who knows him will say." -on director John Ford
Salary
The Longest Day (1962) $30,000
Fort Apache (1948) $110,000
Henry Fonda's
Biography
Birth name
Henry Jaynes Fonda
Nickname
One-Take Fonda
Hank
Height
6' 1½" (1.87 m)
Mini biography
Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, Henry Fonda started his acting debut with the Omaha Community Playhouse, a local amateur theater troupe directed by Dorothy Brando. He moved to the Cape Cod University Players and later Broadway, New York to expand his theatrical career from 1926 to 1934. His first major roles in Broadway include "New Faces of America" and "The Farmer Takes a Wife".
The latter play was transfered to the screen in 1935 and became the start-up of Fonda's lifelong Hollywood career. The following year he married Frances Seymour Fonda with whom he had two children: Jane and Peter Fonda also to become screen stars. He is most remembered for his roles as Abe Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939),
Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination, and more recently, Norman Thayer in On Golden Pond (1981), for which he received an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1982. Henry Fonda is considered one of Hollywood's old-time legends and was friend and contemporary of James Stewart, John Ford and Joshua Logan. His movie career which spanned almost 50 years is completed by a notable presence in American theater and television.
IMDb mini-biography by
Laurence Dang
Spouse
Shirley Fonda (3 December 1965 - 12 August 1982) (his death)
Afdera Franchetti (10 March 1957 - January 1961) (divorced)
Susan Blanchard (28 December 1950 - May 1956) (divorced) 1 child
Frances Seymour Brokaw (16 September 1936 - 14 April 1950) (her death) 2 children
Margaret Sullavan (25 December 1931 - 1932) (divorced)
Trade mark
Noticeable for his "cat-like" walk, especially in westerns: moving at a slow but clock-like tempo, throwing forward one feet at time, while letting the arms dangle loosely at his sides.
Bright blue eyes
Henry Fonda's
Trivia & Facts
Ranked #95 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Father of Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.
Studied acting with Dorothy Brando, mother of Marlon Brando.
Tony Award for "Mister Roberts" in the title role. [1948]
Earned the rank of Life Scout and became a Scout Master as an adult.
Grandfather of Bridget Fonda, Justin Fonda and Troy Garity.
During a Barbara Walters interview, Jane Fonda claimed that her father was deeply in love with Lucille Ball and that the two were "very close" during the filming of Yours, Mine and Ours (1968).
Hobby was making model airplanes and kites.
Grandfather of Vanessa Vadim, father-in-law of Roger Vadim.
Father-in-law of Tom Hayden.
His last film was also Myrna Loy's.
His ancestors came from Genoa, Italy, and fled to the Netherlands around 1400.
Among the early Dutch settlers in America, they established a still-thriving small town in upstate New York named Fonda in the early 1600s, named after patriarch Douw Fonda, who was later killed by Indians.
Henry Fonda's paternal grandparents moved to Nebraska in the 1800s.
Father-in-law of Ted Turner.
The oldest person ever to win a Best Actor Oscar (He was 76 at the time).
Was good friends with James Stewart.
He periodically returned to the legitimate stage throughout his career ("Mister Roberts," "Critic's Choice," "First Monday in October"), but missed out on the chance to create the role of George in the original Broadway production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
when his agent rejected the script out of hand, without consulting him.
The agent gave as his reason the assertion that, "you don't want to be in a play about four people yelling at each other all the time."
Fonda, who was an admirer of playwright Edward Albee's talents, was furious.
It didn't help matters when old friends like James Stewart and his wife Gloria Stewart, or even his own daughter Jane, told him that they saw the play in New York and couldn't picture anyone but Fonda in the lead.
Finally seeing the show himself, Fonda was duly impressed by Arthur Hill's performance in the role, and conceded that he couldn't have played the part any better.
Was known as a ladies' man in Hollywood, having been involved in affairs with many actresses.
Step-daughter, Pan, with Frances Brokaw
Daughter, Amy, with Susan Blanchard.
In spite of his kind, heroic, honest screen persona, he was often described as being cold, aloof and frequently angry off-screen.
A friendship and collaboration of nearly 20 years was ended when director John Ford sucker-punched him while making Mister Roberts (1955).
The Fonda family was acquainted with Marlon Brando's family, as they both lived in Omaha, NE, although the two very different actors never knew each other because Fonda was much older.
In fact, when the teenaged Brando started out as an actor, he did so in the shadow of Fonda, who was the most famous person from Omaha at that point.
Was twice a roommate and a very close friend of James Stewart.
They met and shared a room when the two were both struggling young actors in the early 1930s.
Stewart went out to Hollywood a little before Fonda did and when Fonda moved out there he shared Stewart's home, where they both gained reputations as ladies' men.
After Stewart got married and Fonda had kids, the more mellow buddies still hung out, usually spending time building model airplanes.
He was voted the 29th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Though a Democrat for most of his life, Fonda was once a registered Republican, according to his son Peter Fonda in his autobiography "Don't Tell Dad: A Memoir" (1999).
Peter believes that Henry's liberalism caused him to be "gray-listed" during the early 1950s, when he experienced a six-year layoff from films.
Won Broadway's 1948 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Mister Roberts" in the title role -- an award shared with Paul Kelly for "Command Decision" and Basil Rathbone for "The Heinres."
He also won a second, Special Tony in 1979, and was additionally nominated for Broadway's 1975 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Clarence Darrow."
He was voted the 10th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.
Named the #6 greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends by the American Film Institute
Pictured on a 37¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued in his honor on 20 May 2005.
One of his hobbies was bee keeping. This was one of many traits that his son, Peter Fonda, incorporated into his performance in Ulee's Gold (1997), a performance Peter says he based on his father.
He and his daughter Jane Fonda were the first father-daughter couple to be Oscar-nominated the same year (1982).
Of the Oscar-winning father-daughter couples, he and his daughter are the one of two couples
(the other is Hayley Mills/John Mills) where the daughter won an Academy award before the father did.
Awarded "Father of The Year" in 1963 by the Father's Day Mother's Day Council, Inc.
His performance as Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) is ranked #51 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
Fonda, who played the second Commander in Chief-Pacific (CINCPAC II) in In Harm's Way (1965), was actually a naval veteran of World War II who served in the Pacific Theater.
After making The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Fonda enlisted in the Navy to fight in World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio."
He served in the Navy for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee; later, Fonda was commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade (O-2) in Air Combat Intelligence.
For his service in the Central Pacific, he won the Bronze Star, the fourth highest award for bravery or meritorious service in conflict with the enemy.
On April 12, 1967, he visited the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk for an overnight stay.
Three films of his are on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time. They are:
"On Golden Pond" (1981) at #45, "12 Angry Men" (1957) at #42, and "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) at #7.
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Henry Fonda Trivia Test
So you think you know everything there is to know about Henry Fonda? Well, let's see if you do.
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Henry won an Academy Award for On Golden Pond. He was nominated for one other movie. What was it?
a. The Grapes of Wrath
b. The Longest Day
c. Jezebel
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What was Henry's final big screen appearance?
a. Summer Solstice
b. On Golden Pond
c. Gideon's Trumpet
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What movie did Henry appear in with Lucille Ball?
a. Sex and the Single Girl
b. Once Upon a Time in the West
c. Yours, Mine and Ours
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Henry's famous western My Darling Clementine was based on what famous Old West incident?
a. Gun Fight at the O.K. Corral
b. Battle of Little Big Horn
c. The Civil War
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Which movie did Henry star with Lauren Bacall and Natalie Wood?
a. Sex and the Single Girl
b. The Lady Eve
c. Yours, Mine and Ours
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How many movies did Henry appear in with John Wayne?
a. 4
b. 5
c. 6
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How many disaster movies did Henry make?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
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Henry Fonda was in On Golden Pond with daughter, Jane Fonda. What movie was he in with son, Peter Fonda?
a. Madigan
b. Wanda Nevada
c. Home to Stay
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Henry Fonda Famous Lines
Here are a few of our favorite lines from Henry Fonda.
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Tom Joad (The Grapes of Wrath):
"Ma, there comes a time when a man gets mad."
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Lt. Doug Roberts (Mister Roberts):
"I looked down from our bridge and saw our captain's palm tree! Our trophy for superior achievement!
The Admiral John J. Finchley award for delivering more toothpaste and toilet paper than any other Navy cargo ship in the safe area of the Pacific."
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Juror No. 8 (Twelve Angry Men):
"There were 11 votes for guilty. It's not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first."
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Robert Leffingwell (Advise and Consent):
"Son, this is a Washington, D.C. kind of lie. It's when the other person knows you're lying and also knows you know he knows."
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Abraham Lincoln (Young Mr. Lincoln):
"Gentlemen and fellow citizens, I presume you know who I am; I'm plain Abraham Lincoln. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance."
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Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (Midway):
"Were we better than the Japanese, or just luckier?"
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William Russell (The Best Man):
"T.T. Claypoole has all the characteristics of a dog except loyalty."
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Charles Pike (The Lady Eve):
"Men, that is, lot of men, are more careful in choosing a tailor than they are in choosing a wife…
I think that if there's one time in your life to be careful, to weigh every pro and con, this is the time."
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