Happy belated 116th birthday to Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor who had a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics, earning one Academy Award for Best Actor on two nominations.
He was born in Grand Island, Nebraska on May 16, 1905, Henry Jaynes Fonda was the son of printer William Brace Fonda, and his wife, Herberta (Jaynes). The family moved to Omaha, Nebraska in 1906.
Fonda's patriline originates with an ancestor from Genoa, Italy, who migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century.
In 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America.They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, New York. By 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska.
Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist, though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Grand Island. He said, "My whole damn family was nice." They were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion.
Despite having a religious background, he later became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a good skater, swimmer, and runner. He worked part-time in his father's print plant and imagined a possible career as a journalist.
Later, he worked after school for the phone company. He also enjoyed drawing. Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America; Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout. However, this is denied elsewhere. When he was about 14, his father took him to observe the brutal lynching of Will Brown during the Omaha race riot of 1919. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life.
By his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet (1.8m) tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism, but did not graduate. While at Minnesota he was a member of Chi Delta Xi, a local fraternity, which later became Chi Phi's Gamma Delta chapter on that campus. He took a job with the Retail Credit Company. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935.
His film career began to gain momentum with roles such as Bette Davis's fiancé in her Academy Award-winning performance in Jezebel (1938), brother Frank in Jesse James (1939), and the future President in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), directed by John Ford. His early career peaked with his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films, based on a novel of the same name by Nobel laureate for literature, John Steinbeck.
In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's western Fort Apache (1948).
After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1956, at the age of fifty-one, he played the title role as the thirty-eight-year-old Manny Balestrero in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Wrong Man.
In 1957, he starred as Juror #8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also the co-producer of this film, won the BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.
Later in his career, Fonda moved into darker roles, such as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), underrated and a box office disappointment at its time of release, but now regarded as one of the best westerns of all time.
He also played in lighter-hearted fare such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, but also often played important military figures, such as a colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but was too ill to attend the ceremony.
At age 20, Fonda started his acting career at the Omaha Community Playhouse when his mother's friend Dodie Brando (mother of Marlon Brando) recommended that he try out for a juvenile part in You and I, in which he was cast as Ricky. He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, and embarrassed by his acting ability.
When he received the lead in Merton of the Movies, he realized the beauty of acting as a profession, as it allowed him to deflect attention from his own tongue-tied personality and create stage characters relying on someone else's scripted words. Fonda decided to quit his job and go east in 1928 to seek his fortune.
He arrived on Cape Cod and played a minor role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a valued member of the University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock company. There, he worked with Margaret Sullavan, his future wife.
James Stewart joined the Players a few months after Fonda left, though they were soon to become lifelong friends.
Fonda left the Players at the end of their 1931–1932 season after appearing in his first professional role in The Jest, by Sem Benelli. Joshua Logan, a young sophomore at Princeton who had been double-cast in the show, gave Fonda the part of Tornaquinci, "an elderly Italian man with a long white beard and even longer hair." Also in the cast of The Jest with Fonda and Logan were Bretaigne Windust, Kent Smith, and Eleanor Phelps.
Soon after, Fonda headed for New York City to be with his then wife, Margaret Sullavan. The marriage was brief, but when James Stewart came to New York his luck changed.
Getting contact information from Joshua Logan, Jimmy, as he was called, Hank Fonda and these small-town boys found they had a lot in common, as long as they didn't discuss politics. The two men became roommates and honed their skills on Broadway. Fonda appeared in theatrical productions from 1926 to 1934. They fared no better than many Americans in and out of work during the Great Depression, sometimes lacking enough money to take the subway.
Fonda got his first break in films when he was hired in 1935 as Janet Gaynor's leading man in 20th Century Fox's screen adaptation of The Farmer Takes a Wife; he reprised his role from the Broadway production of the same name, which had gained him recognition. Suddenly, Fonda was making $3,000 a week and dining with Hollywood stars such as Carole Lombard.
Stewart soon followed him to Hollywood, and they roomed together again, in lodgings next door to Greta Garbo. In 1935 Fonda starred in the RKO film I Dream Too Much with the opera star Lily Pons. The New York Times announced him as "Henry Fonda, the most likable of the new crop of romantic juveniles." Fonda's film career blossomed as he costarred with Sylvia Sidney and Fred MacMurray in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the first Technicolor movie filmed outdoors.
He starred with ex-wife Margaret Sullavan in The Moon's Our Home, and a short rekindling of their relationship led to a brief but temporary consideration of remarriage. Fonda got the nod for the lead role in You Only Live Once (1937), also costarring Sidney, and directed by Fritz Lang.
He starred opposite Bette Davis, who had picked him, in the film Jezebel (1938). This was followed by the title role in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), his first collaboration with director John Ford, and that year he played Frank James in Jesse James (1939). Another 1939 film was Drums Along the Mohawk, also directed by Ford.
Fonda's successes led Ford to recruit him to play Tom Joad in the film version of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1940). A reluctant Darryl Zanuck, who preferred Tyrone Power, insisted on Fonda's signing a seven-year contract with his studio, Twentieth Century-Fox.
Fonda agreed and was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film, which many consider to be his finest role. Fonda starred in Fritz Lang's The Return of Frank James (1940) with Gene Tierney. He then played opposite Barbara Stanwyck in Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), and again teamed with Tierney in the successful screwball comedy Rings on Her Fingers (1942). She was one of Fonda's favorite co-stars, and they appeared in three films together. He was acclaimed for his role in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).
Fonda enlisted in the United States Navy to fight in World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio." Previously, Stewart and he had helped raise funds for the defense of Britain. Fonda served for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Navy Presidential Unit Citation. After being discharged from active duty due to an "overage in rank", Fonda was transferred to the Naval Reserve, serving three years (1945-1948).
After the war, Fonda took a break from movies and attended Hollywood parties and enjoyed civilian life. Stewart and Fonda would listen to records and invite Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Dinah Shore, and Nat King Cole over for music, with the latter giving the family piano lessons. Fonda played Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946), which was directed by John Ford.
Fonda did seven postwar films until his contract with Fox expired, the last being Otto Preminger's Daisy Kenyon (1947), opposite Joan Crawford. He starred in The Fugitive (1947), which was the first film of Ford's new production company, Argosy Pictures. In 1948 he appeared in a subsequent Argosy/Ford production, Fort Apache, as a rigid Army colonel, along with John Wayne and Shirley Temple in her first adult role.
Refusing another long-term studio contract, Fonda returned to Broadway, wearing his own officer's cap to originate the title role in Mister Roberts, a comedy about the U.S. Navy, during World War II in the South Pacific Ocean where Fonda, a junior officer, Lt. Douglas A. Roberts wages a private war against a tyrannical captain.
He won a 1948 Tony Award for the part. Fonda followed that by reprising his performance in the national tour and with successful stage runs in Point of No Return and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. After an eight-year absence from films, he starred in the same role in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts with James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon, continuing a pattern of bringing his acclaimed stage roles to life on the big screen.
On the set of Mister Roberts, Fonda came to blows with director John Ford, who punched him during filming, and Fonda vowed never to work for the director again. While he kept that vow for years, Fonda spoke glowingly of Ford in Peter Bogdanovich's documentary Directed by John Ford and in a documentary on Ford's career alongside Ford and James Stewart. Fonda refused to participate until he learned that Ford had insisted on casting Fonda as the lead in the film version of Mr. Roberts, reviving Fonda's film career after concentrating on the stage for years.
After Mr. Roberts, Fonda was next in Paramount Pictures's production of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace (1956) about French Emperor Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, in which he played Pierre Bezukhov opposite Audrey Hepburn; it took two years to shoot. Fonda worked with Alfred Hitchcock in 1956, playing a man falsely accused of robbery in The Wrong Man; the unusual semidocumentary work of Hitchcock was based on an actual incident and partly filmed on location.
In 1957 Fonda made his first foray into producing with 12 Angry Men, in which he also starred. The film was based on a teleplay and a script by Reginald Rose, and directed by Sidney Lumet. The low-budget production was completed in 17 days of filming, mostly in one claustrophobic jury room. It had a strong cast, including also Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, and E. G. Marshall. The intense story about twelve jurors deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder was well received by critics worldwide.
Fonda shared the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations with co-producer Reginald Rose, and won the 1958 BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance as "Juror
#8". Early on, the film drew poorly, but after gaining recognition and awards, it proved a success. In spite of the outcome, Fonda vowed that he would never produce a movie again, fearing that failing as a producer might derail his acting career.
After acting in the western movies The Tin Star (1957) and Warlock (1959), Fonda returned to the production seat for the NBC western television series The Deputy (1959–1961), in which he starred as Marshal Simon Fry. His co-stars were Allen Case and Read Morgan.
During the 1960s, Fonda performed in a number of war and western epics, including 1962's The Longest Day and the Cinerama production How the West Was Won, 1965's In Harm's Way, and Battle of the Bulge.
In the Cold War suspense film Fail-Safe (1964), Fonda played the President of the United States who tries to avert a nuclear holocaust through tense negotiations with the Soviets after American bombers are mistakenly ordered to attack the USSR. He also returned to more light-hearted cinema in Spencer's Mountain (1963), which was the inspiration for the 1970s TV series, The Waltons, based on the Great Depression of the 1930s memories of Earl Hamner, Jr..
Fonda appeared against type as the villain 'Frank' in 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West. After initially turning down the role, he was convinced to accept it by actor Eli Wallach and director Sergio Leone (who had previously tried to hire him to portray the Man with No Name in his Dollars Trilogy, a role that was later taken on by Clint Eastwood), who flew from Italy to the United States to persuade him to take the part. Fonda had planned on wearing a pair of brown-colored contact lenses, but Leone preferred the paradox of contrasting close-up shots of Fonda's innocent-looking blue eyes with the vicious personality of the character Fonda portrayed.
Fonda's relationship with Jimmy Stewart survived their disagreements over politics – Fonda was a liberal Democrat, and Stewart a conservative Republican. After a heated argument, they avoided talking politics with each other. The two men teamed up for 1968's Firecreek, where Fonda again played the heavy.
In 1970 Fonda and Stewart co-starred in the western The Cheyenne Social Club, in which they humorously argued politics. They had first appeared together on film in On Our Merry Way (1948), an episodic comedy which also starred William Demarest and Fred MacMurray and featured a grown-up Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, who had acted as a child in the Our Gang movie serials of the 1930s.
Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity. His family and close friends called him "Hank". In 1999 he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Screen Legends of the Classic Hollywood Era (stars with a film debut by 1950) by the American Film Institute.
Happy belated 116th birthday to Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor who had a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics, earning one Academy Award for Best Actor on two nominations.
He was born in Grand Island, Nebraska on May 16, 1905, Henry Jaynes Fonda was the son of printer William Brace Fonda, and his wife, Herberta (Jaynes). The family moved to Omaha, Nebraska in 1906.
Fonda's patriline originates with an ancestor from Genoa, Italy, who migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century.
In 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America.They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, New York. By 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska.
Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist, though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Grand Island. He said, "My whole damn family was nice." They were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion.
Despite having a religious background, he later became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a good skater, swimmer, and runner. He worked part-time in his father's print plant and imagined a possible career as a journalist.
Later, he worked after school for the phone company. He also enjoyed drawing. Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America; Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout. However, this is denied elsewhere. When he was about 14, his father took him to observe the brutal lynching of Will Brown during the Omaha race riot of 1919. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life.
By his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet (1.8m) tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism, but did not graduate. While at Minnesota he was a member of Chi Delta Xi, a local fraternity, which later became Chi Phi's Gamma Delta chapter on that campus. He took a job with the Retail Credit Company. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935.
His film career began to gain momentum with roles such as Bette Davis's fiancé in her Academy Award-winning performance in Jezebel (1938), brother Frank in Jesse James (1939), and the future President in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), directed by John Ford. His early career peaked with his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films, based on a novel of the same name by Nobel laureate for literature, John Steinbeck.
In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's western Fort Apache (1948).
After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1956, at the age of fifty-one, he played the title role as the thirty-eight-year-old Manny Balestrero in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Wrong Man.
In 1957, he starred as Juror #8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also the co-producer of this film, won the BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.
Later in his career, Fonda moved into darker roles, such as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), underrated and a box office disappointment at its time of release, but now regarded as one of the best westerns of all time.
He also played in lighter-hearted fare such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, but also often played important military figures, such as a colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but was too ill to attend the ceremony.
At age 20, Fonda started his acting career at the Omaha Community Playhouse when his mother's friend Dodie Brando (mother of Marlon Brando) recommended that he try out for a juvenile part in You and I, in which he was cast as Ricky. He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, and embarrassed by his acting ability.
When he received the lead in Merton of the Movies, he realized the beauty of acting as a profession, as it allowed him to deflect attention from his own tongue-tied personality and create stage characters relying on someone else's scripted words. Fonda decided to quit his job and go east in 1928 to seek his fortune.
He arrived on Cape Cod and played a minor role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a valued member of the University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock company. There, he worked with Margaret Sullavan, his future wife.
James Stewart joined the Players a few months after Fonda left, though they were soon to become lifelong friends.
Fonda left the Players at the end of their 1931–1932 season after appearing in his first professional role in The Jest, by Sem Benelli. Joshua Logan, a young sophomore at Princeton who had been double-cast in the show, gave Fonda the part of Tornaquinci, "an elderly Italian man with a long white beard and even longer hair." Also in the cast of The Jest with Fonda and Logan were Bretaigne Windust, Kent Smith, and Eleanor Phelps.
Soon after, Fonda headed for New York City to be with his then wife, Margaret Sullavan. The marriage was brief, but when James Stewart came to New York his luck changed.
Getting contact information from Joshua Logan, Jimmy, as he was called, Hank Fonda and these small-town boys found they had a lot in common, as long as they didn't discuss politics. The two men became roommates and honed their skills on Broadway. Fonda appeared in theatrical productions from 1926 to 1934. They fared no better than many Americans in and out of work during the Great Depression, sometimes lacking enough money to take the subway.
Fonda got his first break in films when he was hired in 1935 as Janet Gaynor's leading man in 20th Century Fox's screen adaptation of The Farmer Takes a Wife; he reprised his role from the Broadway production of the same name, which had gained him recognition. Suddenly, Fonda was making $3,000 a week and dining with Hollywood stars such as Carole Lombard.
Stewart soon followed him to Hollywood, and they roomed together again, in lodgings next door to Greta Garbo. In 1935 Fonda starred in the RKO film I Dream Too Much with the opera star Lily Pons. The New York Times announced him as "Henry Fonda, the most likable of the new crop of romantic juveniles." Fonda's film career blossomed as he costarred with Sylvia Sidney and Fred MacMurray in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the first Technicolor movie filmed outdoors.
He starred with ex-wife Margaret Sullavan in The Moon's Our Home, and a short rekindling of their relationship led to a brief but temporary consideration of remarriage. Fonda got the nod for the lead role in You Only Live Once (1937), also costarring Sidney, and directed by Fritz Lang.
He starred opposite Bette Davis, who had picked him, in the film Jezebel (1938). This was followed by the title role in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), his first collaboration with director John Ford, and that year he played Frank James in Jesse James (1939). Another 1939 film was Drums Along the Mohawk, also directed by Ford.
Fonda's successes led Ford to recruit him to play Tom Joad in the film version of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1940). A reluctant Darryl Zanuck, who preferred Tyrone Power, insisted on Fonda's signing a seven-year contract with his studio, Twentieth Century-Fox.
Fonda agreed and was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the film, which many consider to be his finest role. Fonda starred in Fritz Lang's The Return of Frank James (1940) with Gene Tierney. He then played opposite Barbara Stanwyck in Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), and again teamed with Tierney in the successful screwball comedy Rings on Her Fingers (1942). She was one of Fonda's favorite co-stars, and they appeared in three films together. He was acclaimed for his role in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).
Fonda enlisted in the United States Navy to fight in World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio." Previously, Stewart and he had helped raise funds for the defense of Britain. Fonda served for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Navy Presidential Unit Citation. After being discharged from active duty due to an "overage in rank", Fonda was transferred to the Naval Reserve, serving three years (1945-1948).
After the war, Fonda took a break from movies and attended Hollywood parties and enjoyed civilian life. Stewart and Fonda would listen to records and invite Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Dinah Shore, and Nat King Cole over for music, with the latter giving the family piano lessons. Fonda played Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946), which was directed by John Ford.
Fonda did seven postwar films until his contract with Fox expired, the last being Otto Preminger's Daisy Kenyon (1947), opposite Joan Crawford. He starred in The Fugitive (1947), which was the first film of Ford's new production company, Argosy Pictures. In 1948 he appeared in a subsequent Argosy/Ford production, Fort Apache, as a rigid Army colonel, along with John Wayne and Shirley Temple in her first adult role.
Refusing another long-term studio contract, Fonda returned to Broadway, wearing his own officer's cap to originate the title role in Mister Roberts, a comedy about the U.S. Navy, during World War II in the South Pacific Ocean where Fonda, a junior officer, Lt. Douglas A. Roberts wages a private war against a tyrannical captain.
He won a 1948 Tony Award for the part. Fonda followed that by reprising his performance in the national tour and with successful stage runs in Point of No Return and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. After an eight-year absence from films, he starred in the same role in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts with James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon, continuing a pattern of bringing his acclaimed stage roles to life on the big screen.
On the set of Mister Roberts, Fonda came to blows with director John Ford, who punched him during filming, and Fonda vowed never to work for the director again. While he kept that vow for years, Fonda spoke glowingly of Ford in Peter Bogdanovich's documentary Directed by John Ford and in a documentary on Ford's career alongside Ford and James Stewart. Fonda refused to participate until he learned that Ford had insisted on casting Fonda as the lead in the film version of Mr. Roberts, reviving Fonda's film career after concentrating on the stage for years.
After Mr. Roberts, Fonda was next in Paramount Pictures's production of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace (1956) about French Emperor Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, in which he played Pierre Bezukhov opposite Audrey Hepburn; it took two years to shoot. Fonda worked with Alfred Hitchcock in 1956, playing a man falsely accused of robbery in The Wrong Man; the unusual semidocumentary work of Hitchcock was based on an actual incident and partly filmed on location.
In 1957 Fonda made his first foray into producing with 12 Angry Men, in which he also starred. The film was based on a teleplay and a script by Reginald Rose, and directed by Sidney Lumet. The low-budget production was completed in 17 days of filming, mostly in one claustrophobic jury room. It had a strong cast, including also Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, and E. G. Marshall. The intense story about twelve jurors deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder was well received by critics worldwide.
Fonda shared the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations with co-producer Reginald Rose, and won the 1958 BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his performance as "Juror #8". Early on, the film drew poorly, but after gaining recognition and awards, it proved a success. In spite of the outcome, Fonda vowed that he would never produce a movie again, fearing that failing as a producer might derail his acting career.
After acting in the western movies The Tin Star (1957) and Warlock (1959), Fonda returned to the production seat for the NBC western television series The Deputy (1959–1961), in which he starred as Marshal Simon Fry. His co-stars were Allen Case and Read Morgan.
During the 1960s, Fonda performed in a number of war and western epics, including 1962's The Longest Day and the Cinerama production How the West Was Won, 1965's In Harm's Way, and Battle of the Bulge.
In the Cold War suspense film Fail-Safe (1964), Fonda played the President of the United States who tries to avert a nuclear holocaust through tense negotiations with the Soviets after American bombers are mistakenly ordered to attack the USSR. He also returned to more light-hearted cinema in Spencer's Mountain (1963), which was the inspiration for the 1970s TV series, The Waltons, based on the Great Depression of the 1930s memories of Earl Hamner, Jr..
Fonda appeared against type as the villain 'Frank' in 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West. After initially turning down the role, he was convinced to accept it by actor Eli Wallach and director Sergio Leone (who had previously tried to hire him to portray the Man with No Name in his Dollars Trilogy, a role that was later taken on by Clint Eastwood), who flew from Italy to the United States to persuade him to take the part. Fonda had planned on wearing a pair of brown-colored contact lenses, but Leone preferred the paradox of contrasting close-up shots of Fonda's innocent-looking blue eyes with the vicious personality of the character Fonda portrayed.
Fonda's relationship with Jimmy Stewart survived their disagreements over politics – Fonda was a liberal Democrat, and Stewart a conservative Republican. After a heated argument, they avoided talking politics with each other. The two men teamed up for 1968's Firecreek, where Fonda again played the heavy.
In 1970 Fonda and Stewart co-starred in the western The Cheyenne Social Club, in which they humorously argued politics. They had first appeared together on film in On Our Merry Way (1948), an episodic comedy which also starred William Demarest and Fred MacMurray and featured a grown-up Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, who had acted as a child in the Our Gang movie serials of the 1930s.
Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity. His family and close friends called him "Hank". In 1999 he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Screen Legends of the Classic Hollywood Era (stars with a film debut by 1950) by the American Film Institute.
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