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Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda

Birthday: 1905-05-16 | Place of Birth: Grand Island, Nebraska, USA

Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American 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. 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 fiancee 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, about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl 1930s. This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films. 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 1957 he starred as Juror No.8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also co-producer, won the BAFTA 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 finally 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. He died from heart disease a few months later. Description above from the Wikipedia article Henry Fonda, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2018
Jane Fonda in Five Acts

as    Self (archive footage)

2013
John Ford & Monument Valley

as    Self (archive footage)

2006
Sacco and Vanzetti

as    Prof. Tommy Turner (archive footage)

1981
On Golden Pond

as    Norman Thayer Jr.

1980
Gideon's Trumpet

as    Clarence Earl Gideon

1979
City on Fire

as    Fire Chief Risley

1979
Wanda Nevada

as    Old Prospector

1979
Fedora

as    President of the Academy

1979
Meteor

as    The President

1978
The Great Smokey Roadblock

as    Elegant John

1977
Tentacles

as    Mr. Whitehead

1977
Rollercoaster

as    Simon Davenport

1976
Midway

as    Adm. Chester W. Nimitz

1974
Clarence Darrow

as    Clarence Darrow

1974
My Name Is Nobody

as    Jack Beauregard

1973
The Serpent

as    Alan Davies

1973
The Red Pony

as    Carl Tiflin

1973
Ash Wednesday

as    Mark Sawyer

1971
Sometimes a Great Notion

as    Henry Stamper

1971
The American West of John Ford

as    Self - Narrator

1970
The Cheyenne Social Club

as    Harley Sullivan

1970
There Was a Crooked Man...

as    Woodward W. Lopeman

1969
1968
Firecreek

as    Bob Larkin

1968
Madigan

as    Commissioner Anthony X. Russell

1968
The Boston Strangler

as    John S. Bottomly