Peter Fonda is the son of Henry Fonda, the brother of Jane Fonda and the father of Bridget Fonda. After a few years acting on the stage, Peter started in the movies in 1962. After several small parts in Hollywood movies, he teamed with Dennis Hopper and produced and starred in Easy Rider (1969, with Jack Nicholson), a counter-culture classic that made Fonda a star. During the 1970s he appeared in movies such as Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Wanda Nevada (which he also directed). In 1999 he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a beekeeper in Ulee's Gold (co-starring Jessica Biel). His other films include Wanda Nevada (1979), The Limey (1999, directed by Steven Soderbergh), Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000, starring Alec Baldwin) and the 2007 remake of the western 3:10 to Yuma (starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale).
As a kid Fonda accidentally shot himself in the stomach with an antique pistol.
Peter Fonda is most famous, of course, for his work in films, as an actor, director, producer, screenwriter, and all-around anti-authority figure. It is not as well known that he was a musician and recording artist, doing one obscure 1967 single, "November Night," written by none other than a then little-known Gram Parsons. As celebrities who didn't actually do much music-making go, he had more influence on the world of rock than almost anyone, as a friend of the Byrds and other heavyweights; a partial inspiration for one of the Beatles' songs; and (with Dennis Hopper) the prime creative force behind Easy Rider, one of the first films in which a hip rock soundtrack was crucial to the movie's impact.
It has never been uncommon for entertainers in different media, and for musicians and actors, to mix socially. Peter Fonda was doing so from about the time he began to act professionally. What made him different in some senses from generations that had preceded him in such activities, though, was that he was among the first relatively well-known Hollywood figures to align himself with the rock counterculture. Indeed, when he became a big fan and close friend of the Byrds in the mid-'60s, the rock counterculture had barely begun. In 1965, when the Beatles played in Los Angeles, he and the Byrds were invited to visit them in a house where they were staying. Most of the party, including Fonda, took an acid trip, and at one point Fonda began to talk about how he knew what it was like to be dead, having almost died on the operating table as a child once. John Lennon overheard these remarks and was apparently supremely annoyed. Changing Fonda's gender, he made the statement "I know what it's like to be dead" a key lyric in the Beatles' 1966 song "She Said, She Said."
Fonda played guitar and sang, although he apparently never had serious ambitions to change his focus from films to music, and also apparently did not take up songwriting. At a party in 1966, he was playing guitar and singing casually, and was heard by jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, who enjoyed it so much that he soon wanted to record with Fonda. According to Fonda's autobiography, he and Masekela got some studio time and quickly recorded 16 tracks, with some help from the Byrds' David Crosby and Roger McGuinn. After all that, however, he decided not to release the album because, in his words, "it wasn't there."
However, he did release a single with a then-unknown Gram Parsons, "November Night" on the A-side and a Donovan song on the B-side (in his autobiography, Fonda refers to the B-side as "Colors"; confusingly, in Sid Griffin's biography of Gram Parsons, it is referred to as "Catch the Wind"). The obscure single came out on the equally obscure Chisa label in 1967. "November Night" is a passable, lilting pop folk-rock tune with a slight Caribbean feel, not too characteristic of the more country-oriented material for which Parsons was most famous. Fonda's vocals, likewise, are passable but lack personality. The arrangements feature trumpets that could well be Masekela, though Fonda's autobiography is not clear on this point. It would make sense if it was Masekela, considering not only his friendship with Fonda and collaboration on the unreleased album, but also Masekela's contribution of trumpet to a famous Byrds song recorded around this era, "So You Want to Be a Rock'n'Roll Star." Masekela, for his part, introduced Fonda to a club audience about a quarter-century later and, according to Fonda's book, said "I had given him everything he ever needed to know about Hollywood, 25 years earlier." "November Night," incidentally, has shown up on at least one reissue: a bootleg EP of International Submarine Band/Gram Parson's rarities, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, that, at this point, is probably about as rare as the original Chisa 45.
Fonda also wrote that, back in 1967, he had a concept for a second album that would be called Got to Get You into My Life, in honor of a Beatles song (that appeared on the same album as "She Said, She Said," in fact). He recalled that it would have "secondary tracks going with people saying things like: I really love your sister's last movie; I think your father's one of the greatest, et cetera." Dennis Hopper, according to Fonda, paid him a visit to insist that he (Hopper) direct the record. A heated argument ensued in which Fonda smashed a Sony reel-to-reel recorder and said that Hopper could work on his album if he could reassemble it; an aghast Hopper left the house. As Fonda does not refer to the Got to Get You into My Life album again in the book, it can be presumed that the album never even got started, let alone recorded.
Fonda did work closely with Hopper, however, on the legendary late-'60s film Easy Rider. Fonda starred, produced, and co-wrote; Hopper co-starred with Fonda and directed. Easy Rider was a significant landmark in film of the era, reflecting the ethos (and, as is sometimes overlooked, problems) of the hippie counterculture at a time when Hollywood simply did not portray it accurately, if it even acknowledged that it existed. The use of late-'60s rock on the soundtrack was key to the movie's artistic and commercial success, mixing some hits (Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild," most famously, as a soundtrack for their motorcycling) with less obvious choices by the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, the Electric Prunes, and the little-known bands Fraternity of Man and the Holy Modal Rounders. Although the filmmakers wanted to use Crosby, Stills, & Nash for the soundtrack, the temporary music track they used while the film was in post-production -- the one, basically, that ended up on the final product -- worked so well that they changed their minds. The music was selected from their own record collections, serving as evidence that they were pretty hip guys, not dependent upon Hollywood consultants for track choices, as films would often be decades later. As further evidence of their hipness, they gave a small role to Phil Spector, who buys the cocaine from them in the opening scene.
The soundtrack got to the Top Ten, and there were several amusing anecdotes associated with it. Bob Dylan refused them use of his "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" (Roger McGuinn sings it on the soundtrack), but was inspired by an advance screening to write "Ballad of Easy Rider," which, with some help from McGuinn, was completed and used at the end of the film. Fonda approached Robbie Robertson about doing the score for the film in the fall of 1968, and Robertson refused. After seeing an advance screening, Robertson changed his mind, and tried to convince Fonda to let him write the complete score, even though the soundtrack was due to be put on the film in two days. It was often rumored that Fonda and Hopper's film characters were based on Roger McGuinn and David Crosby, respectively. And it should be noted that a rock score by the Electric Flag had been used for a previous film starring Fonda, The Trip, which briefly features Gram Parsons' group, the International Submarine Band, onscreen (although the music they are apparently playing is in fact by the Electric Flag).
Fonda continued to be friendly with rock musicians after the '60s, although he did not play as strong a role in influencing the exposure of their music. He did use Bruce Langhorne, the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist most known for playing on some of Bob Dylan's mid-'60s sessions, to score the 1971 movie he directed and starred in, The Hired Hand. He was a narrator on the 1972 Tribute to Woody Guthrie album. In his autobiography, he writes of composing a song around 1990, "The in Between," and refers to the accomplishment of writing a song as something he had always wanted to do in life. This implies that it was the first song he wrote, and that none of the material he recorded back in 1966 and 1967 was original, though no one knows. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: Easy Rider, The Limey, Ulee's Gold
First Major Screen Credit: Tammy and the Doctor (1963)
Biography
Known in turn as Henry Fonda's son, Jane Fonda's brother, counter-culture icon Captain America, and Bridget Fonda's father, Peter Fonda finally got his due as an actor for his superb performance as a Florida beekeeper in Ulee's Gold (1997). Snaring an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for his work, Fonda was finally able to step out of his celebrated family's shadow, earning recognition for something besides his title as the black sheep of the Fonda clan.
Born in New York City on February 23, 1940, Fonda, by his own accounts, grew up trying to live up to his famous father's expectations. An exceptionally bright young man, he entered the University of Omaha as a sophomore at the age of seventeen, without even finishing high school. In Omaha, he broke into acting, appearing in the Omaha Playhouse's production of Harvey. He then went to New York to pursue his acting career, first working with the Cecilwood Theatre and then debuting on Broadway at the age of twenty-one in a production of Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole. His early career took shape under the specter of his famous father, with the young actor incurring comparisons to the elder Fonda with everything he did. His onstage success led to a Hollywood screen test for the part of John F. Kennedy in PT 109. The role in the 1963 film ultimately went to Cliff Robertson, but Fonda made his film debut that same year in the Sandra Dee vehicle Tammy and the Doctor.
Fonda continued to be consigned to romantic leads until he appeared in Roger Corman's The Wild Angels in 1966. A motorcycle enthusiast whom Corman cast after the film's original star, George Maharis, demanded a stunt double, Fonda seemed a natural for the role of a motorcycle gang leader. The film, which cast actual Hell's Angels and co-starred Bruce Dern, was a violent, drug-addled affair that catalyzed Fonda's reputation as his father's delinquent spawn and direct antithesis. This reputation was furthered by his starring role in Corman's The Trip, a 1967 film about the healing powers of LSD. Co-starring Dern and featuring a screenplay written by Jack Nicholson, The Trip, with its emphasis on sex, drugs, and societal estrangement, provided a preview of the film that would give Fonda both fame and notoriety.
In 1969, Fonda starred in Easy Rider, a film that he also produced. Directed by Dennis Hopper, it starred Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson as freewheeling, pot-smoking adventurers who find their counter-culture lifestyle threatened by the encroaching confines of the Establishment. One of the cultural landmarks of the late 1960s, tt was also an unexpected commercial success, grossing over $19 million at the box office, earning Fonda an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and contributing to Hollywood's new interest in young audiences and socially relevant movies.
Following the film's success, Fonda, now both a cult hero and a millionaire, went on to collaborate with Hopper again on 1971's The Last Movie. The film didn't enjoy the acclaim of their previous collaboration, and Fonda's subsequent efforts of that decade also failed to live up to the stature of Easy Rider. One possible exception was the 1974 sleeper Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, a film in which Fonda appeared to finance his directorial projects, one of which was Wanda Nevada, a 1979 film that featured his father. Increasingly, Fonda became better-known for his activities off-screen than on: his status as an anti-Establishment figurehead was enhanced when John Lennon wrote the song "She Said She Said" about him. Reportedly, it was inspired by a bad acid trip the musician had taken, during which Fonda repeatedly told him, "I know what it's like to be dead, man."
Fonda's screen career continued its downward spiral during the 1980s, and towards the end of that decade it was once again overshadowed by that of a family member, in this case his daughter, Bridget. Fonda, who had exiled himself from L.A. in 1969 to live in Montana, seemed more aware of this than anyone: in an interview, he was quoted as saying, "I was Captain America and where....can you go with that? You can only ride so many motorcycles and smoke so many joints." But in the mid-1990s, Fonda's career began to get some much-needed resuscitation. After making a cameo appearance in Bodies, Rest & Motion, a 1993 film starring his daughter, he had a starring role in Michael Almereyda's Nadja (1994) and essentially parodied himself in John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. (1996). Fonda's true comeback was Ulee's Gold, Victor Nunez's 1997 exploration of loss and family ties. He won raves for his portrayal of the title character, and the Best Actor Oscar nomination he received for the film served as the industry's formal recognition of his re-emergence as a Hollywood player. The actor, always one to play by his own rules, next rejected mainstream Hollywood fare to star in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey in 1999, playing a shifty record producer. He also starred in The Passion of Ayn Rand as the author's long-suffering husband; the film premiered at that year's Sundance Film Festival. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide
1939–, American actor. The son of Henry Fonda and brother of Jane Fonda, he made his screen debut in a forgettable 1963 feature. Several movies later he co-wrote and starred in the now-classic 1960s motorcycle odyssey Easy Rider (1969), an enormously successful film that largely typecast him as a laid-back biker. Fonda subsequently made a string of other films, including The Hired Hand (1971), a Western that also marked his directorial debut. He did not approach his earlier success for almost three decades, however, until he won critical and popular acclaim for his starring role in Ulee's Gold (1997). He is the father of actress Bridget Fonda.
Fonda was born in New York, New York, the son of actor Henry Fonda and financier Frances Ford Seymour, who took her
own life in 1950. Fonda is the younger brother of actress Jane Fonda. On his eleventh
birthday, he accidentally shot himself and nearly died. Fonda studied acting in Omaha,
Nebraska, which was his father's home town. He began attending the University of Omaha and joined the Omaha
Community Playhouse, where many actors (including his father and Marlon Brando)
founded their careers. Fonda is the father of actress Bridget Fonda.
Fonda found work on Broadway where he achieved notice in Blood, Sweat and Stanley
Poole, before going to Hollywood to make films. He started his film career in romantic leading roles. He debuted in Tammy and the Doctor (1963),
which he called "Tammy and the Schmuckface." But Fonda's intensity impressed Robert
Rossen, the director of Lilith (1964). Rossen envisioned a Jewish actor in
the role of Stephen Evshevsky, a mental patient. Fonda earned the role after removing his boss' glasses from his face and putting
them on so as to look more "Jewish." He also played the male lead in The Young Lovers (1964), about out-of-wedlock
pregnancy, and The Victors (1964), an "anti-war war movie."
By the mid-1960s, Peter Fonda was not a conventional "leading man" in Hollywood. As Playboy
magazine reported, Fonda had established a "solid reputation as a dropout." He had become outwardly nonconformist and grew his hair long, alienating the "establishment" film industry. Desirable acting work
became scarce.
Replica of the "Captain America"-Harley which Fonda rode in Easy Rider, on display in
a German Museum
Fonda's first counterculture-oriented film role was the lead character Heavenly Blues, a Hells
Angels chapter president, in the Roger Corman-directed film The Wild Angels (1966). The Wild Angels is still remembered for Fonda's "eulogy" delivered at
the fiasco of a fallen Angel's funeral service, which was sampled in the Primal Scream
recording "Loaded" (1991), and in other rock songs. Then Fonda played the male lead character in Corman's film
The Trip (1967), a television
commercial director experiencing the ambivalence and turmoil of divorce.
In 1968, Fonda produced Easy Rider, the classic film for which he is best known.
Easy Rider is about two long-haired bikers traveling through the southwest and
southern United States in a world of intolerance and violence. The Fonda character was the
charismatic, laconic "Captain America" whose motorcycle jacket bore a large American flag across the back. Dennis Hopper played the garrulous "Billy." Jack Nicholson was
nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actor for his turn as George Hanson, an alcoholic civil rights lawyer who rides along. Fonda co-wrote Easy Rider
with Terry Southern and Hopper, who directed.
Hopper filmed the cross-country road trip depicted in Easy Rider almost entirely on location, spending US$375,000.00, and released the film in 1969 to massive success. Robbie Robertson was so moved by an advance screening that he approached Fonda and tried to convince
him to let him write a complete score, even though the film was nearly due for wide release. Fonda refused, using the Byrds' song
"Ballad of Easy Rider," Dylan's "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" sung by the Byrds' Roger
McGuinn. Fonda, Hopper and Southern were nominated for the Academy Award for
Best Original Screenplay.
After the success of 'Easy Rider, both Hopper and Fonda were in a position to make any film project they wanted. Whilst
Hopper chose to make the drug addled jungle epic The Last Movie, Fonda displayed
considerable maturity as a film maker and directed The Hired Hand. Fonda took the
lead role in a cast that also featured Warren Oates, Verna
Bloom and Beat poet Michael McClure.
Fonda received critical recognition for his part in Ulee's Gold (1997). Fonda
portrayed a stoic north Florida beekeeper who, in spite of his tumultuous family life, imparts
a sense of integrity to his wayward convict son, and takes risks in acting protectively toward his drug-abusing daughter-in-law.
His performance resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Fonda's movie career
is made the more interesting for the extreme contrast between the wide-eyed and questing (though possibly amoral, certainly
drug-dealing) rebel motorcyclist in Easy Rider and the upright war-veteran father he played nearly three decades later in
Ulee's Gold — a character who tries to share his wisdom about integrity with his wayward son and saves his addicted
daughter-in-law's life.
Fonda's choices of film roles are notable for extreme contrasts in type: The introspective drug-dealing rebel motorcycle biker
in Easy Rider is a world apart from the war-veteran father in Ulee's Gold, a man whose strength is in his
benevolence.
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