Short Biography

Son of Henry Fonda, Born in NYC. 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.

Through his friendships with members of the Byrds, Fonda visited The Beatles in their rented house in Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles in August, 1965. While John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were under the influence of LSD, Lennon heard Fonda say, "I know what it`s like to be dead". This phrase became the tag line for their song "She Said She Said", which appeared in their groundbreaking Revolver (1966) album. In 1966, Fonda was arrested in the anti-war Sunset Strip riot which the police ended forcefully. The band Buffalo Springfield protested the department`s handling of the incident in their song "For What It`s Worth".

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 TV commercial director experiencing the ambivalence and turmoil of divorce.

In addition to his film work, Fonda`s lent his talents to TV as well, notably in the Time Life infomercial for nine music CDs of 1960`s music, Flower Power: Music of the Love Generation. He appeared in the critically-acclaimed 2004 TV movie Back When We Were Grownups with Faye Dunaway, Blythe Danner and Jack Palance,and he also appeared in a 2008 remake of Journey to the Center of The Earth with Rick Schroeder. Fonda also made a special guest appearance on ER `s 300th episode as a man who gave up his Down Syndrome child for adoption and finally has a chance to meet him years later. This episode aired on December 6, 2007.[3]

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