Henry Fonda

He was voted the 10th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.

Pictured on a 37¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued in his honor on 20 May 2005.

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.

Ranked #95 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

He and his daughter Jane Fonda were the first father-daughter couple to be Oscar-nominated the same year (1982).

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.

Contrary to popular belief, Fonda did approve of his daughter Jane's anti-war activism during Vietnam and at AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Henry Fonda (1978) told her critics to "shut up", because "she's perfect".

He returned to Broadway in 1974 for the biographical drama Clarence Darrow for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Fonda's health had been deteriorating for years, but his first outward symptoms occurred after an April 1974 performance when he collapsed from exhaustion. After the appearance of a heart arrhythmia brought on by prostate cancer, a pacemaker was installed and Fonda returned to the play in the following year. After the run of the 1978 play First Monday of October, he took the advice of his doctors and quit the rigors of live stage, though he continued to star in films and on television.

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).

On April 12, 1967, he visited the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk for an overnight stay in preparation for his role in Yours, Mine and Ours (1968).

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 (1942), 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.

Named Father of The Year 1963 by the Father's Day/Mother's Day Council, Inc.

Appeared in three movies based exclusively on World War II battles, The Longest Day (1962), Battle of the Bulge (1965) and Midway (1976), and also appeared in a more fictional representation of the Pearl Harbor attack and early South Pacific campaign, In Harm's Way (1965), in the same role he would portray in "Midway," Admiral Chester Nimitz (referred to as CINCPAC II in "In Harm's Way").

Of the Oscar-winning father-daughter couples, he and daughter Jane are the one of two pairs where the daughter won an Academy award before the father did. The other pair is Hayley Mills and John Mills. Hayley's 1960 honorary Oscar was given to her for the best juvenile performance in Pollyanna (1960). Her father John became very popular with the denizens of Hollywood when the Mills family resided there while Hayley made films for Walt Disney. He won a supporting actor Oscar in 1971 for his role as the village idiot in David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970).

A friendship and collaboration of nearly 20 years was ended when director John Ford sucker-punched him while making Mister Roberts (1955).

Won Broadway's 1948 Tony Award as best dramatic actor for the title role in "Mister Roberts" and award shared with Paul Kelly for "Command Decision: and Basil Rathbone for "The Heiress." He also won a second special Tony in 1979, and was additionally nominated for Broadway's 1975 Tony Award as best dramatic actor for "Clarence Darrow".

Nearly fell out with his close friend James Stewart in an argument over blacklisting in the spring of 1947. It happened shortly after Fonda joined Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and John Huston in signing an open letter to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, suggesting it end its investigations of Communism involvement in the film industry. According to Stewart, the argument was "long and pretty heated" and ended only when the two men realized they were jeopardizing so many years of friendship. Soon afterward, Fonda moved to New York, not returning to Hollywood until 1955. Although part of the reason for his extended stay in the East was his starring role in Mister Roberts on Broadway, he also confided to friends that he couldn't tolerate the political climate in Southern California during those years. Jane Fonda admits she never got her father to say exactly what was said during the argument with Stewart. "I know it was definitely about the House Unamerican Activities Committee and what became known as McCarthyism later on," she recalled. "And it's true that their friendship really almost ended over that. That was why, after they had cooled down, they decided they would never again talk politics when they were together. But since they were agreeing to be so close-mouthed with one another, they were hardly going to start opening up to other people.".

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).

The birth of his daughter Jane Fonda was the cause of some interruptions during his filming of Jezebel (1938) with Bette Davis.

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 Fonda and Peter Fonda, also to become screen stars. He is most remembered for his roles as Abe Lincoln in Young Mr.

The Fonda family was acquainted with Marlon Brando's family, as they both lived in Omaha, Nebraska and Henry appeared with Marlon's mother Dorothy in community theater. In fact, the Brando family, on a trip to Southern California in the late 1930s, visited Henry on a movie set. The two very different actors never knew each other socially because Fonda was much older. In fact, when the teen-aged 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. Brando did tell a story about how he had to fire a housekeeper after he found out that she was allowing tourists to come into his home to look around the digs of a star, for a fee. Soon after, Henry called him to check up on the credentials of a woman applying for the job of housekeeper at his home. It was the same woman that Brando had fired. He enthusiastically recommended her to his mother's former acting protégé, without telling him of her unauthorized tours.

He was voted the 29th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

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".

Was a first-hand witness to the Omaha race riots of 1919 and lynching of Will Brown.