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Post by rosie on May 17, 2007 6:05:27 GMT -5
I did a search and couldn't find any reference to Jane Fonda on this Board. So I thought you might be interested to read an excerpt from an interview with Jane published June 3 2005 in The Guardian. Here is what she had to say about KH: "Question 9: How was it working with Katharine Hepburn, and how was it working with your dad? JF: OK, Katharine Hepburn: the first words she said to me was, [does Hepburn voice and shake] "I don't like you." And the last thing she said to me, when I called her the day after she won her Oscar to congratulate her was, "You'll never catch me now." In other words, it was prickly. But it was also ... almost my favourite chapter in the book is the chapter called On Golden Pond, because I think I really captured the experience. She did not like me, I don't think, and she was extremely competitive. You have to understand, she was old and I was in my 40s, so I was a bigger box office star than her, and I was producing the movie for my father, and so she actually thought I was going to try to get billing above her and all kinds of things which never even occurred to me. However, there were times when I ran into trouble because of my father - like there was a scene where we were having an intense, angry exchange about parcheesi and beating people, and they shot my close-up first and there was so much light in my eyes that I couldn't see his eyes, and so I had the cameraman put some light on his face so that I could see him. When the camera turned around and it was now on him, and before we shot, I said, "Is it OK, Dad? Can you see my eyes?" He said, "I don't need to see your eyes. I'm not that kind of actor." And the way actors are, half of me was demolished, like the character, Chelsea. I just felt so hurt and awful. And the other half of me was saying, "Yes! This is so great, this is just like the character." But the bad part took over, and at the end of the day, when everybody was leaving, I was just immobile on the couch, I was so wiped. And suddenly Katharine Hepburn came up and just put her arms around me; nobody knew it but she just did. And she said, "He doesn't even know that he hurt you. You don't take it personally. Spencer used to do that all the time to me. He'd say, 'I don't need you to be here for the love scenes. Go. I'm not that kind of actor.' They don't know that they've hurt you." And it meant the world to me. That kind of thing, she would do. And then my favourite bit. I had no intention of doing the back flip - I hate going over backwards, especially into cold water. And I had a stunt double all lined up. So right after the "I don't like you", it was "Are you going to do the back flip?" And right as she said that I remembered that dive in Philadelphia Story. And I thought, oh God, I'm going to have to do it. So I said, "Yes, I'm going to do it." And so I spent a month working with a trainer, with pulleys and ropes and mattresses. I can't tell you how hard it was. Finally, I graduated to that raft out there where I finally did it in the movie. I practised and practised and practised, and one day, I finally actually got over - I did a flip, a pretty good flip, better than the one in the movie. I was covered in bruises and I come crawling up on the beach, and out of the bushes comes Kate. She walks over to me and she says, "How do you feel?" And I said, "I feel just great." And she says, "That's all right. You've earned my respect. You've stood up to your fears. If you don't do that, you become soggy." And that stayed with me. Now, whenever I'm afraid of something, I just say, man, I'm not going to get soggy; I'm just going to go into it. She would come in and stir things up. She felt it was the obligation of a star to be fascinating. My father thought it was the obligation of a star to do the work. And it's why I'm happy that I'm his daughter - she was fascinating, but I'm glad I've got his genes. She was prickly." Interesting, eh? film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1501181,00.html
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Post by Shaun on May 17, 2007 11:43:14 GMT -5
Fonda spouted this "fascinating" stuff in the Bette Davis documentary. She acts like it's a bad thing. What I think Kate meant was that a star should be fascinating by giving a great performance, not by getting in front of the camera and acting silly, which is what Jane seems to gather from that quote.
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Post by Judy on May 17, 2007 11:50:17 GMT -5
What Fonda leaves out is that it is entirely possible to be fascinating AND do the work. Her implication is that Kate was a light weight who did not do the work. That's just ignorant.
I also find that the tone of her comments about Kate changed a great deal from interviews she gave after the movie and before Kate's book. I've always felt that her tone changed because she took offense at Kate's description of Henry as "cold, cold, cold" - even though Jane herself has written about how distant he was.
Can't prove a thing. Just has always been my feeling because of the way the tone of her comments changed over the years - even though she was telling the same stories back then.
There's another story she tells in interviews - and in her book - about the "I want to be your friend scene." She says she was doing it take after take and finally she went totally dry. Could not call up the tears. They were about to do another take when she spied Kate in the bushes on shore, giving her the thumbs up. She said it had double meaning for her. This was Kate the compassionate woman, knowing how difficult it was for Jane the daughter to play this scene. And it was also Kate the actress, sending good energy over to Jane the actress. From actress to actress. And tears welled up and she did the scene.
It strikes me that after telling THESE stories about the very human and professional assistance Kate offered - the Kate she claims was so jealous of her and who even though there may have been some seriousness behind the comment, the one who was JOKING about "you'll never catch me now" (Fonda's fairly humorous and probably wouldn't know a joke if it came up and hit her over the head) - that to end it with that snarky comment about how she's glad she got Henry's genes instead of Kate's was....well....snarky.
And she doesn't comment in this interview, as she does in her book, that she stood Kate up at their initial meeting. She apparently had a good reason - can't remember what it was - but that would have meant nothting to Kate who was definitely a star/person of the old school and who expected respect. She took the missed meeting as a sign of disrespect.
Who was it, after all, who talked so lovingly to Dick Cavett about the company of Coco who "catered" to the star - namely, her?
Who was it who hired Nora Considine based not only on her credentials but on the fact that she was the only candidate who stood up when Kate came in the room.
Those things mattered to her.
I don't doubt that there was some underlying envy of Fonda who at the time of OGP was in her prime and who was really Kate's boss. "Competitive" is probably not strong enough a word for what Kate was. But she was also the woman who was sensitive enough to pick up on the bad vibes between father and daughter and make an effort to comfort her. And she was also the woman who taught her a life lesson about not allowing yourself to get "soggy." And also the actress who supported another actress from the bushes with a thumbs up.
Fonda tells these stories but sort of negates them with that last slight about being fascinating instead of being a working actor. Leaves a bad taste.
Judy
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Post by Judy on May 17, 2007 11:52:22 GMT -5
(Fonda's fairly humorous
CORRECTION: (Fonda's fairly humorLESS
JS
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Post by dreamer on May 17, 2007 12:55:04 GMT -5
Huh Judy - you were faster than me Was in the garden while thinking Couldn’t have said it better though It too has stroke me, that from the earlier interviews and after Kate’s passing (haven’t heard nor read something in between), that Fonda’s tone has changed. Glad not to be alone with my opinion. The interview is full of cheap remarks. Imitating a weakness of a person is very cheap. May it be the shaking or a different voice. She simply does misunderstand the word fascinating. Am positive that Kate meant, it was the actress on screen, who had to be fascinating while playing her part. And not how Fonda implies. Or her comment about how she's glad she got Henry's genes instead of Kate's. Didn’t she years ago say – she wished Kate and Henry had meet earlier – she could have been her mum. Don’t know if I misunderstood the tone back then, but to me it sounded as if she wished Kate had been her mum. IMO she does counter back because of what Berg (not Kate) wrote in “Kate Remembered”: Hank Fonda was the hardest nut I ever tried to knack. But I didn’t know any more about him after we made the picture, than I did at the beginning. Cold. Cold. Cold. Even though she herself says YUP and agrees. Sad case. Have even thought about if it wasn’t because of Kate’s words on Fonda’s liking her to watch when she made her scenes with her dad. And Kate wrote: I never quite understood. Because this tells me that Jane Fonda needed Kate, but doesn’t admit it. So simple. It is kind of odd – Jane Fonda and Scott Berg both implies things, that Kate should have said. But who did not speak about the duplicates of the painting that Henry Fonda made and why she gave the painting to Ernest Thompson? Who did not tell that Jane Fonda didn’t appear at the first meeting? That was Kate – she was the one not to be cheap. Jane Fonda has herself put her in this spot not Kate and in my opinion Jane Fonda losses credibility and not Kate.
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Post by Shaun on May 17, 2007 13:44:00 GMT -5
Yes, she did say this. I thought I might check out some Fonda movies during Summer Under the Stars, but now I might just casually forget.
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Post by rosie on May 17, 2007 14:02:07 GMT -5
Thanks for all those insightful comments. I thought Fonda's tone was pretty strange too, considering what I had read about her wishing that her dad and KH were her parents. Fonda has taken some pretty sharp turns in her personal life and her beliefs have definitely shifted also! I guess the fact that she didn't have that "grounding" type of upbringing that KH had has led her to do a lot of "searching", etc. But one could also call her shallow! LOL!
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Post by Judy on May 17, 2007 18:12:21 GMT -5
Huh Judy - you were faster than me Was in the garden while thinking Couldn’t have said it better though It too has stroke me, that from the earlier interviews and after Kate’s passing (haven’t heard nor read something in between), that Fonda’s tone has changed. Glad not to be alone with my opinion. The interview is full of cheap remarks. Imitating a weakness of a person is very cheap. May it be the shaking or a different voice. She simply does misunderstand the word fascinating. Am positive that Kate meant, it was the actress on screen, who had to be fascinating while playing her part. And not how Fonda implies. Or her comment about how she's glad she got Henry's genes instead of Kate's. Didn’t she years ago say – she wished Kate and Henry had meet earlier – she could have been her mum. Don’t know if I misunderstood the tone back then, but to me it sounded as if she wished Kate had been her mum. IMO she does counter back because of what Berg (not Kate) wrote in “Kate Remembered”: Hank Fonda was the hardest nut I ever tried to knack. But I didn’t know any more about him after we made the picture, than I did at the beginning. Cold. Cold. Cold. Even though she herself says YUP and agrees. Sad case. Have even thought about if it wasn’t because of Kate’s words on Fonda’s liking her to watch when she made her scenes with her dad. And Kate wrote: I never quite understood. Because this tells me that Jane Fonda needed Kate, but doesn’t admit it. So simple. It is kind of odd – Jane Fonda and Scott Berg both implies things, that Kate should have said. But who did not speak about the duplicates of the painting that Henry Fonda made and why she gave the painting to Ernest Thompson? Who did not tell that Jane Fonda didn’t appear at the first meeting? That was Kate – she was the one not to be cheap. Jane Fonda has herself put her in this spot not Kate and in my opinion Jane Fonda losses credibility and not Kate. Yeah, Dreamer. Jane DID say something like she had fantasized about the idea that Kate, coming from the same period as her father and knowing many of the same people, could have been her mother. It was said in a much kinder way than some of the stories she relates in her book...And, actually, I don't think she repeated that fantasy in her book. Wonder why? And, yes, again. You are right. The cold, cold, cold comment was in Berg's book. I sometimes get the Kate comments confused because he was writing about her at the around the time she was writing ME. But you are right. But Shaun: Watch the Fonda films. They're not all gems and she's not the greatest actor in the world - IMO - But she is good and some are worthwhile. Judy
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katesbiggestfan
Junior Member
As for me prizes are nothing. My prize is my work. - Katharine Hepburn
Posts: 97
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Post by katesbiggestfan on Jul 27, 2008 13:28:13 GMT -5
My dad met "sort of" met Jane Fonda. It wasn't a good way of how.
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Jul 27, 2008 14:02:29 GMT -5
My dad thinks JFo the spawn of Satan. But he fought in Nam, so....
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katesbiggestfan
Junior Member
As for me prizes are nothing. My prize is my work. - Katharine Hepburn
Posts: 97
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Post by katesbiggestfan on Jul 27, 2008 14:04:10 GMT -5
My dad thinks JFo the spawn of Satan. But he fought in Nam, so.... My dad was in the Vietnam war and she was saying that they(meaning where my dad was) had no business being over there and all that kind of crap. My dad depises her for what she did. I don't blame him though.
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Post by dreamer on May 7, 2009 14:31:10 GMT -5
The Kate has a video up with Jane Fonda. Kate is also mentioned. The good thing is - this time she seems to be nice about Kate www.youtube.com/watch?v=puMFhU_z0XcI really like the fact that Fonda is saying that she phoned Kate the day after she won her fourth Oscar. In the other videos we have seen she says - what she also wrote in her book. That Kate phone her.... "you will never catch me" - as if Kate wanted to brag. Haha - a lie never lives long.
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Post by martha on May 8, 2009 7:48:54 GMT -5
Jane's reflections on Kate during ON GOLDEN POND (in the various interviews we've seen over the years) seem to be closely observed and honest (to me at least) and her own and full of love and respect for Kate. Sure she doesn't hold back on the details of Kate's verbiage and actions during their time together during the filming and after .. but this gal's impression of Jane's experiences and how she talks about them is: pure honesty. from whatever place jane was working from at the time.
so i guess the comments hit me differently than some of us here ... but that's part of what makes this forum so entertaining.
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Post by dreamer on May 8, 2009 12:02:05 GMT -5
Jane's reflections on Kate during ON GOLDEN POND (in the various interviews we've seen over the years) seem to be closely observed and honest (to me at least) and her own and full of love and respect for Kate. Sure she doesn't hold back on the details of Kate's verbiage and actions during their time together during the filming and after .. but this gal's impression of Jane's experiences and how she talks about them is: pure honesty. from whatever place jane was working from at the time. so i guess the comments hit me differently than some of us here ... but that's part of what makes this forum so entertaining. I find the use of "verbiage" aka "blabla" quite strange And frankly I don't get the meaning of "pure honesty from whatever place Jane was working from at the time." To me the past is the same whether I am here or elsewhere - so if you would explain what you mean Martha - I would be grateful
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Post by martha on May 8, 2009 13:17:09 GMT -5
i meant to say, dreamer, that jane may have had her own energized interactions with kate in which they both were verbal .. hence 'verbiage' .. by which i did not mean "blah blah" or random language. i meant words exchanged, that's all i meant.
while jane's reporting of her interactions with kate (over the years in various interviews) during OGP have included reports of interactions with kate that seem to our kate-fan ears strident or odd ... all i was trying to say is that i don't necessarily conclude that jane is not reporting her truth. what seemed true to her. and she was the only one there. i wasn't there.
that's all i meant.
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