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. Fonda was born on February 23, 1940, in New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda (19051982) and his wife Frances Ford Seymour (19081950); his older sister is actress Jane Fonda (born 1937). in 1936. He explained that he had accepted the ''soft-sell script'' after years of rejecting similar offers because ''the money is out of sight'' and ''I think good exposure in a commercial is better than bad exposure in a film or play. I ain't He. Jane Fonda told Cohen she wasn't able to achieve everything she wanted in her relationship with her father before he died. After some more action with High-Ballin' (1978), Fonda returned to directing, with the controversial drama Wanda Nevada (1979), wherein the 39-year-old Fonda starred as the "love" interest of the then 13-year-old Brooke Shields. Studied acting with Dorothy Brando, mother of. His father was William Brace Fonda, who owned a printing shop in Omaha, and his mother was Herberta Jaynes Fonda. He never told a soul what he did, the story only came out after he died. In the 60's, Mr. Fonda's two elder children, the actors Jane and Peter, generated wide controversy, Jane particularly for her assertive advocacy of liberal and radical causes and Peter for his identification with the drug and motorcycle cult. [6] He said, "I know what it's like to be dead." Their mother committed suicide in a mental hospital when Peter, her youngest, was ten. Perhaps the greatest and most influential new wave song ever released. Henry Jaynes Fonda (One-Take Fonda, Hank). , start time: 1942-01-01T00:00:00Z. His other notable film roles included those of an innocent man on trial for robbery in Alfred Hitchcocks The Wrong Man (1956), an American president in Fail-Safe (1964), a villain (a rare role for Fonda) in Sergio Leones Once upon a Time in the West (1968), and a bit part in Wanda Nevada (1979), directed by and starring his son, Peter. The actor's wish, a spokesman said, was that there be no service and that his body be cremated. 40 years old, and sounds fresher than most music made today.