Jane Fonda and the history of the arrest that shocked Hollywood

He warned Washington Post A few hours ago: "I'm going to use my body, which is now famous and popular for the series I'm going to do in the District of Columbia, and we'll be doing a demonstration every Friday." Said and done. Red and with a plaid beret, Jane Fonda She was arrested on the stairs of the United States Congress at a protest against climate change inaction.

Fonda has never denied his activist side. If on Friday he was saying that he would benefit from the recording of the series in the city Grace and Frankie and use its notoriety to make demonstrations against climate change visible; half a century ago he used every possible strategy with his fame bring charges against the US administration in conflicts such as the Vietnam War or nuclear power plants. He organized demonstrations, went to Hanoi to produce a film, what he earned in the cinema, or, with his popular aerobic routine, he invested in campaigns against the war or for the Democratic party. This activism earned him to be, even at that time, One of the most hated people by the presidency.

In 1970, declared nobody not grata by the FBI because of his political activism, he entered a Cleveland prison for drug trafficking. Once the bail was released and paid, it was found that the "narcotics" were only vitamins that the actress wore for her own consumption. The image of her arrest went around the world and the actress' criminal record photographs would eventually turn against the instigators. Fonda revived his career and won shortly after his first Oscar. The portrait of the actress with her Klute haircut will remain as one of the iconic images of the seventies.

In the late 1970s, Fonda was battling a campaign of hostility and media bias about his person. Highly engaged in political activism for civil rights and against the Vietnam War – she went alone to Hanoi, where she denounced Nixon's intention to bomb the dams. in the north of the country to kill millions of people – Fonda is accused of treason For two MPs, the Republicans called for a boycott of their films and at each landing airport, they were harassed by several people around Lyndon LaRouche, founder of the National Union of Company Committees.

LaRouche, who would later create a right-wing sect with conspiracy theories of all kinds, came up with a series of stickers with the motto Fonda to eat whales. The businessman hates that the performer played in a film about the dangers of nuclear power plants (Chinese Syndrome, in 1979), while the businessmen harassed the actress wherever she planted with signs of the type "Jane Fonda has more gas leaks than a nuclear power station". The actress discovered in an article that the Larouche-led syndicate was funded in part by her computer company. "Why not start a business to finance the CDE? " then told her second husband, the militant icon of pacifism and then the politician Tom Hayden.

The CRC (Campaign for an Economic Democracy) is an organization that the couple began trying to lead to change and social progress in the United States. "It was very expensive to maintain a national entity Not-for-profit like the CDE in a state as large and varied as California. At that time, I was shooting a film every year and all the premieres had become a way to raise money, but I was afraid I could not keep it afloat, "recalls Fonda in her memoir. from his nemesis scam to provide more resources, they gave up the idea of ​​creating a restaurant or auto shop and it finally turned out that what Fonda knew how to save It was doing exercise.

In 1981, Fonda wrote a book about his program: Fit with Jane Fonda. He ranked first on the list of the best sellers of The New York Times for 24 months the following year, he launched Fit with Jane Fonda: I did not know that your video would become the best-selling VHS in history with 17 million copies seen until depleted in millions of homes. With the resounding success of the video, he managed to raise $ 17 million for the CDE. In the mid-1980s, he decided to separate income from the exercise program from the political organization. Hayden had already been elected a member of the State Assembly of California and the CDE was led by others. Your winnings are estimated millionaires.

Fonda supported with his work the political ideals for those who fought as a couplebut Hayden has always hated the exercise program, as she recalls in her autobiography: "Once she told me that she thought our marriage was starting to be wrecked because of gymnastics. No doubt, I spent more and more time in business, but every time I made a competitive comment, I thought, "Okay, I'll be in vain and whatever you want, but I am clear that I help a lot of women. And, besides, where were you going to get $ 17 million? "