Peter Fonda

Peter Fonda got married thrice during his life and his personal life has been kind of rocky since the beginnings of his career. His first marriage was with Susan Jane Brewer in 1961 which lasted for thirteen years. He then went on to marry Portia Crockett and divorced her in 2011, to marry Margaret DeVogelaere. He has a son, Justin Fonda, and a daughter, Bridget Fonda, from his first marriage.

Peter Fonda was notorious for being a drug addict in his early years as an adult and he famously quoted once that he didn’t trust anybody who didn’t take drugs.

Peter was born in New York City on 23rd February 1939 to Henry Fonda and Frances Seymour Brokaw. His father was at the peak of his career when he welcomed a son in his family and as a result, it was big news and almost entire Hollywood celebrated his birth and a new born Peter remained in the news for several days post his birth. He had an elder sister Jane, who also went on to become a famous actor.

Peter’s mother committed suicide when Peter was just 10, and this shaped his childhood up as he became a rebel and questioned the established orders of the world around him. He was always a rebellious kid and never quite wanted to become an actor. In one such irresponsible action, he accidentally shot himself on his eleventh birthday, and bled so much that he could have died in case of a few more minutes of delay but somehow, he recovered.

To handle his troubled mindset, he was sent away to a beautiful hill station in India - Nainital - amidst nature and beautiful sceneries. He described the event of shooting himself later to his friends, John Lennon and George Harrison, while on drugs one day and told them that he knew what it was like to be dead. Inspired from this statement, Lennon wrote a song for his band ‘The Beatles’ titled ‘She said she said’.

His studied at Fay School in Southborough. Peter Fonda was an average kid when it came to academics and he studied acting in an institute in Nebraska University. While studying at the University of Nebraska, Peter joined Omaha Community Playhouse, which was known as the beginning stage of many great actors such as his own father and Marlon Brando.

Peter Fonda’s acting career officially kick-started in the late 50s to early 60s as he found work in Broadway with a production of ‘Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole’ among others.

He was in his early 20s then, and despite being the son of Henry Fonda, he wanted to bag the acting roles based on his own credits, which he did with signing the film ‘Tammy and the Doctor’. The producer of the film, Ross Hunter, was looking for a fresh face for his romantic film when he came across Peter’s performance in the Broadway plays. The film was released in 1963 and was a small hit.

With his very next film, ‘The Victors’, which was based on the Second World War, Peter received a Golden Globe Award for his performance. He played the main role in ‘The Young Lovers’ in 1964 and the film was a moderate success, although Peter’s performance was appreciated.

During this period, Peter starred in a few other films and made guest appearances in several Television shows, but he wasn’t able to find his true calling as he got tired of playing straightforward roles in conventionally structured films.

And just like that, a personal transformation happened in the mid 60s with Fonda growing long hair, taking LSD, going on cross country bike trips with his hippie friends. He had become sort of a rebel; Hollywood alienated him and being the son of Henry Fonda didn’t help him then. The roles became scarce and the few films that he did were the reflections of what sort of life he wanted to live. He starred in small ‘hippie’ films such as ‘The Trip’ and ‘The Wild Angels’.