Jane Fonda To Receive 4nd AFI Life Achievement Award

Sir Howard Stringer, Chair of the American Film Institute's Board of Trustees, announced today the Board's decision to honor Jane Fonda with the 42nd AFI Life Achievement Award, the highest honor for a career in film. The award will be presented to Fonda at a gala tribute on June 5, 2014 in Los Angeles, CA. The 42nd AFI Life Achievement Award tribute special will return for its second year on TNT when it airs in June 2014, followed by encores on sister network Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

AFI to honor Jane Fonda with its 42nd AFI Life Achievement Award in 2014. Photo courtesy of Firooz Zahedi. (PRNewsFoto/American Film Institute, Firooz Zahedi)

Jane Fonda is American film royalty, said Stringer. A bright light first introduced to the world as the daughter of Henry Fonda, the world watched as she found her own voice and forged her own path as an actor and a cultural icon. Today she stands tall among the giants of American film, and it is AFIs honor to present Jane Fonda with its 42nd Life Achievement Award.

The Academy Award -winning actor of KLUTE , Fonda has starred in more than 40 films since her screen debut. Spanning decades, her diverse career features celebrated comedies - including CAT BALLOU - as well as powerful dramatic performances such as THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? , THE CHINA SYNDROME and ON GOLDEN POND (1981) - in which she starred with her father, Henry Fonda, the AFI Life Achievement Award recipient in 1978. More recently, Fonda appeared in Lee Daniels' THE BUTLER (2013), and currently stars in Aaron Sorkin's HBO series, THE NEWSROOM.

Last year's AFI Life Achievement Award tribute brought together the film community in force to honor Mel Brooks. AFI Life Achievement Award recipient Martin Scorsese (1997) presented the award, while other past honorees Robert De Niro , Morgan Freeman and Steven Spielberg (1995) paid tribute to Brooks and his diverse talent. Among the other comedic and filmmaking greats who honored Brooks were Woody Allen, Billy Crystal, Larry David, David Lynch, Conan O'Brien, Amy Poehler, Carl Reiner, Martin Short, Sarah Silverman and Gene Wilder.

The sponsors of the 2014 AFI Life Achievement Award tribute to Jane Fonda is American Airlines, the official airline of the American Film Institute.

About Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda is part of an American acting dynasty. Where others would have been defined by their place in the family tree - the daughter of an American screen legend, the wife of a famous director, activist or billionaire broadcaster - it is Fonda herself, an Academy Award -winning actor of KLUTE and star of more than 40 other films, whose image as an artist and activist eclipses all others. Her path through the starry firmament of Hollywood and the world beyond has ultimately been determined by the gravitational pull of her own power.

Jane Seymour Fonda was born in New York City in 1937 to a socialite, Frances Seymour Brokaw, and an up and coming actor, Henry Fonda. By the time she was old enough to pursue her own career, Fonda's father had become a movie icon of American grit and integrity. At 17, she appeared with her father in a production of

The Country Girl at the Omaha Community Theatre. She joined the Actors Studio in 1958, studied with Lee Strasberg and made her screen debut two years later opposite Anthony Perkins in TALL STORY (1960) directed by Joshua Logan.

Fonda's early screen roles revealed a talent for light comedy in well-crafted adaptations of Broadway plays like PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT and BAREFOOT IN THE PARK established her in pop culture before she landed dramatic roles in THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (1969) and KLUTE. Her portrayal of prostitute and stalking victim Bree Daniels earned Fonda her first Academy Award . Fonda's stirring performances in COMING HOME, JULIA won praise from the nation's film critics.

In the 1980s, Fonda defied expectations by writing Jane Fonda's Workout Book and creating Jane Fonda's Workout Video, best-sellers that ignited a national aerobic exercise craze among baby boomers. In all, Fonda released two dozen fitness videos, six books and 13 audios.

Fonda's acting triumph of the 1980s was the film adaptation of Ernest Thompson's play, ON GOLDEN POND (1981), in which she appeared with her father - whose performance earned him his only Academy Award for Best Actor. Fonda herself was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Other major films during this decade were NINE TO FIVE and STANLEY AND IRIS (1989), after which she announced her retirement. Retirement didn't last as Fonda returned to the performing arts where she triumphed on the Broadway stage in Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations (2009), and appeared in such films as MONSTER-IN-LAW and PEACE, LOVE & MISUNDERSTANDING (2011). She currently plays Leona Lansing in the HBO series THE NEWSROOM.

About the AFI Life Achievement Award

The highest honor given for a career in film, the AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the AFI Board of Trustees on February 26, 1973. It is presented to a single honoree each year based on the following criteria as mandated through a resolution passed by the AFI Board of Trustees:

The recipient should be one whose talent has in a fundamental way advanced the film art; whose accomplishment has been acknowledged by scholars, critics, professional peers and the general public; and whose work has stood the test of time.

AFI Life Achievement Award Recipients

Jane Fonda joins an esteemed group of individuals who have been chosen for this distinguished honor since its inception in 1973. A group that includes her father Henry Fonda (1978), making them the first father/daughter honorees in the history of the award. Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas share a similar precedent as recipients in 1992 and 2009, respectively.

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