Fonda sorry for Hanoi Jane image
NEW YORK - The reinvention of Jane Fonda as an
all-American conformist gathered pace
yesterday with the abandonment of one of
her longest-cherished positions, support
for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war.
"I will go to my grave regretting the
photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier,
which looks like I was trying to shoot at
American planes," said the 62-year-old
Oscar-winning actress, referring to a 1972
picture of her with North Vietnamese
soldiers which earned her the soubriquet
of Hanoi Jane.
"It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanised
such hostility. It was the most horrible
thing I could possibly have done. It was
just thoughtless."
Fonda has rethought large areas of her life
recently, splitting up with her husband,
the CNN cable news founder Ted Turner,
and embracing Christianity.
"You have to be able to say 'I was wrong'.
You have to be able to accept
responsibility for your mistakes and learn
from them," she said in an interview with
the chat show personality Oprah Winfrey
in O magazine.
Fonda said that at the time of the Hanoi
picture she was living a "fun but rather
empty life" in France with her first
husband, the late film director Roger
Vadim.
Ed Croucher, executive director of the
Vietnam Veterans of America, was
unimpressed by her change of heart.
"There are many of us who will never
forgive her for what she did," he said.
"Because of her, prisoners were tortured
or denied basic necessities.
"She could start by helping the groups
she harmed the most, such as surviving
prisoners of war or the families of those
who died in captivity."
Fonda said of her conversion to
Christianity: "It's been difficult. People
come up to me in airports and throw their
arms around me."
The former apostle of the 1980s fitness
video-tape industry also said that she was
bulimic up to the age of 36. "I think I lived
on apple peels and the crust of bread
because if I went any further into the food
there'd be no stopping.
"It has something to do with living a lie.
Not being authentic. Faking it. It's like
becoming a woman and then rejecting it.
Like alcoholism, it's a disease of denial."
By Michael Ellison - The Guardian - June 22, 2000.
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