Jane Fonda - Family Background

Family Background

Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda and the Canadian-born socialite Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw. Fonda's surname originates from her patrilineal Dutch ancestry; she is also of English descent. She was named after the third wife of English king Henry VIII, Lady Jane Seymour, to whom she is distantly related on her mother's side. Her brother, Peter Fonda (born 1940), and his daughter Bridget Fonda, also are actors. Fonda had a maternal half-sister, Frances, who died in 2008. In 1950, when Fonda was 12, her mother committed suicide while under treatment at a psychiatric hospital. Later that year Fonda's father married socialite Susan Blanchard (born 1928), nine years his daughter's senior; this marriage would end in divorce.

At age 15, Fonda taught dance at Fire Island Pines, New York. She attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, but dropped out to become a fashion model. She was twice featured on the cover of Vogue.