Jane Fonda to accept prestigious Gold Hugo Award in Chicago
During the 1980s, Hollywood legend Henry Fonda revealed in American Film magazine his measure for success as an actor.
"It's not how good you are that counts," he said. "It's how long you last."
Given that yardstick, Jane Fonda, his daughter, would be one of the greatest success stories in showbiz.
Fonda, 79, has just earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the Netflix show "Grace and Frankie," now in its third season.
On Saturday, July 29, Fonda will receive the prestigious Gold Hugo Career Achievement Award from the Chicago International Film Festival during a tribute beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, 221 N. Columbus Drive, Chicago.
The often controversial Fonda has worn many labels in her career: actress, activist, sex symbol, militant, fitness guru and philanthropist.
I've interviewed Fonda on a few occasions beginning in 1979 when she came to Chicago with co-stars Michael Douglas and Jack Lemmon to promote the nuclear power plant thriller "The China Syndrome."
At the time, Fonda's career was still in recovery from America's public backlash against her fervent and highly public anti-Vietnam War campaign during which she earned the derisive nickname "Hanoi Jane."
Her professional life nearly ceased. She accused then-President Richard Nixon of attempting to blacklist her.
"He (Nixon) used the same tactics that he, as an architect of the McCarthy years in the 1950s, used by getting conservative members of state legislatures to introduce resolutions of censure to prevent me from entering the state or showing my films. It had an effect," she said.
"I assumed my career was over. Then, 'Fun With Dick and Jane,' a comedy about a couple who set out to stop the rip-off of the American middle class, came along.
"The war was over and my career started again. The film proved I still had a sense of humor and could look good. The rest is history."
Fonda's once-radical political beliefs have made her the target of police surveillance, hate campaigns and legal actions. She admitted receiving many death threats.
"I take my security very seriously," she told me, "both in my home and in my person at all times. I have a bodyguard and a German shepherd and a number of other things. It's just smart."
She will re-team with her "Barefoot in the Park" and "Electric Horseman" co-star Robert Redford in the movie "Our Souls at Night," scheduled for release in November.
The July 29 event, a fundraiser for the Chicago International Film Festival, will feature an onstage conversation with Fonda, accompanied by film clips from her iconic roles in movies such as "Klute" and "Coming Home" for which she won Academy Awards as best actress.
Dad would be proud.
Tickets for the Fonda tribute start at $200 and can be purchased at chicagofilmfestival.com.
<h3 class="briefHead">Spielberg films featured at Vernon library</h3>
Join me for an entertaining analysis and discussion of the movies of Steven Spielberg starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 26, at the Vernon Area Library, 300 Olde Half Day Road, Lincolnshire.
Film clips from such classics as "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Munich" will be shown. Free admission. Go to vapld.info for details.
Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column runs Friday in Time out!