Great news: Jane Fonda has been chosen to receive the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award. The two time Oscar winner will be celebrated by Hollywood on June 5, 2014 in Hollywood. Fonda won Best Actress twice, in 1971 for Klute and 1977 for Coming Home. She’s been nominated seven times altogether, for They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Julia, The China Syndrome, On Golden Pond, and The Morning After.
Before Meryl Streep, Fonda held the unofficial title of the Greatest American Actress. She also won an Emmy for The Dollmaker, and has been nominated for a Tony Award. She was nominated for an Emmy this year for “The Newsroom.”
Jane has also run a highly successful charity in Atlanta designed to prevent teenage pregnancy through education and of course has been a leader in the women’s movement. Her cultural influence cannot be overstated.
She has also an AFI legacy. Her late dad, Henry Fonda, was feted by the AFI in 1978.
And Fonda is still working hard in film: she plays the mother in Shawn Levy’s upcoming “This is Where I Leave You.” Jonathan Tropper, who wrote the novel and the screenplay upon which the film is based, told me the other night that Jane “was the revelation of the film shoot. He said: “She held her own with a bunch of fast talking comedians” in the cast and “surprised everyone” with her comedy chops.
