Henry Fonda

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Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 - August 12, 1982) was an acclaimed American film and stage actor beloved for his roles as plain-speaking men of humane decency. Fonda's acting style was notable for its subtlety: even before the popularity of method acting in Hollywood movies, Fonda had developed a naturalistic approach. Fonda starred in many films that are considered classics, including The Grapes of Wrath, The Lady Eve, The Ox-Bow Incident, My Darling Clementine, Mister Roberts, and 12 Angry Men.

He was born in Grand Island, Nebraska to William Brace Fonda and Herberta Krueger Jaynes, and started his acting career at age twenty at the Omaha Community Playhouse when his mother's friend Dodie Brando needed a young man to play the lead in You and I.

Fonda was absent from the screen after Fort Apache (1948) until returning for Mister Roberts (1955), repeating a role he had played on Broadway to great critical acclaim. On the set of Mister Roberts Fonda came to blows with his long-time friend, the director John Ford, and vowed never to work for him again. He never did. In 1957, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance in 12 Angry Men. Among his many awards, Fonda won a Tony Award and the Oscar for his performance in On Golden Pond—in which his daughter Jane co-starred. His son Peter is also an actor, as is his granddaughter Bridget.

Fonda was a close friend of actor James Stewart. The two men had opposing political views—Fonda was a liberal Democrat, while Stewart was a conservative Republican. After a heated argument, the friends avoided talking politics with each other. In 1970, Fonda and Stewart co-starred in the Western The Cheyenne Social Club, a minor film in which the two humorously argued politics.

Henry Fonda died of prostate cancer and heart disease at his home in Los Angeles just months after his Oscar win, with wife Shirlee and daughter Jane at his side.

On May 16th, 2005, the 100th anniversary of his birth, Turner Classic Movies held a Henry Fonda marathon in honor of the event.

• 1965-1982 Shirlee Mae Adams
• 1957-1961 Countess Afdera Franchetti
• 1950-1956 Susan Blanchard
• 1936-1950 Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw, committed suicide in 1950
• 1931-1932 Margaret Brooke Sullavan - died by drug overdose in 1960

• The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935)
• Way Down East (1935)
• I Dream Too Much (1935)
• Spendthrift (1936)
• The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936)
• The Moon's Our Home (1936)
• You Only Live Once (1937)
• Wings of the Morning (1937)
• Slim (1937)
• That Certain Woman (1937)
• I Met My Love Again (1938)
• Jezebel (1938)
• Blockade (1938)
• Spawn of the North (1938)
• The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
• Jesse James (1939)
• Let Us Live! (1939)
• The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
• Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
• Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
• Lillian Russell (1940)
• The Return of Frank James (1940)
• Chad Hanna (1940)
• The Lady Eve (1941)
• Meet the Stars: Hollywood Meets the Navy (1941) (short subject)
• Wild Geese Calling (1941)
• You Belong to Me (1941)
• Rings on Her Fingers (1942)
• The Male Animal (1942)
• The Magnificent Dope (1942)
• Tales of Manhattan (1942)
• The Big Street (1942)
• The Battle of Midway (1942) (short subject) (narrator)
• It's Everybody's War (1942) (short subject) (narrator)
• Immortal Sergeant (1943)
• The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
• My Darling Clementine (1946)
• The Long Night (1947)
• The Fugitive (1947)
• Daisy Kenyon (1947)
• On Our Merry Way (1948)
• Fort Apache (1948)
• On Stage! (1949) (short subject)
• Jigsaw (1949) (Cameo)
• Benjy (1951) (short subject)
• Pictura: Adventure in Art (1951) (documentary)
• Main Street to Broadway (1953) (Cameo)
• Mister Roberts (1955)
• War and Peace (1956)
• The Wrong Man (1956)
• Eight Steps to Peace (1957) (documentary) (narrator)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• The Tin Star (1957)
• Stage Struck (1958)
• Warlock (1959)
• The Man Who Understood Women (1959)
• San Francisco Fire (1962) (short subject)
• Advise and Consent (1962)
• The Longest Day (1962)
• How the West Was Won (1962)
• Spencer's Mountain (1963)
• The Best Man (1964)
• Fail-Safe (1964)
• Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
• The Rounders (1965)
• In Harm's Way (1965)
• The Dirty Game (1965)
• Battle of the Bulge (1965)
• The Really Big Family (1966) (short subject) (narrator)
• A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966)
• Born to Buck (1966) (documentary) (narrator)
• All About People (1967) (short subject) (narrator)
• Welcome to Hard Times (1967)
• Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil (1968) (short subject) (narrator)
• Firecreek (1968)
• Madigan (1968)
• Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)
• The Boston Strangler (1968)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• Writer: An Impression of John Steinbeck (1969) (short subject)
• To Save a Soldier (1969) (documentary) (narrator)
• Too Late the Hero (1970)
• The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)
• There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
• Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)
• Directed by John Ford (1971) (documentary)
• The Serpent (1973)
• Ash Wednesday (1973)
• My Name Is Nobody (1973)
• Celebrity Art (1973) (short subject)
• Mussolini: The Last Four Days (1974)
• Midway (1976)
• Tentacles (1977)
• Rollercoaster (1977)
• The Last of the Cowboys (1977)
• America's Sweetheart: The Mary Pickford Story (1978) (documentary) (narrator)
• The Biggest Battle (1978)
• Fedora (1978)
• The Swarm (1978)
• Wanda Nevada (1979)
• Meteor (1979)
• On Golden Pond (1981)

• Henry Fonda Presents the Star and the Story (1955-1956)
• The Deputy (1959-1961) (also producer)
• Stranger on the Run (1967)
• The Smith Family (1971-1972)
• The Red Pony (1973)
• The Alpha Caper (1973)
• Clarence Darrow (1974)
• Collision Course: Truman vs. MacArthur (1976)
• Almos' a Man (1976)
• Captains and the Kings (1976) (miniseries)
• Home to Stay (1978)
• Roots: The Next Generations (1979) (miniseries)
• The Jilting of Granny Weatherall (1980) (narrator)
• The Greatest Man in the World (1980) (narrator)
• The Golden Honeymoon (1980) (narrator)
• The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1980) (Cameo)
• The Oldest Living Graduate (1980)
• Gideon's Trumpet (1980)
• Summer Solstice (1981)

• Henry Fonda at IMDb