Jane Fonda”s ”Life” a whine-fest

After getting through this full-size bio – not to mention the promotional blitzkrieg that accompanied it – one question begs to be asked: If Jane Fonda hadn’t been the daughter of a great film star, would her career (and not to mention her life) have been the same?

Only the most naive reader would say yes.

Oh, Jane Fonda certainly had a singular life. Her mother, Frances Seymour Fonda, committed suicide. Her father, Henry, was one of the great film actors of his age but a man with his own issues.

Parented largely by remote control by her dad and his subsequent wives, Jane Fonda emerged as a screen ingenue, almost in cookie-cutter fashion.

And surely you’ve heard about how her French hubby Roger Vadim used her to set up ménages-À-trois. But, hey – it was the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Absent of self-esteem, she was just indulging him.

There was the Vietnam War era, where she became one of the most visible war protesters, known as Hanoi Jane for her manipulation by the forces fighting U.S. troops.

There were key acting jobs that resulted in her two Oscar wins (“Klute” in 1971 and “Coming Home” in 1978). It’s difficult to slight those accomplishments, but if her name weren’t Fonda, those roles might have gone elsewhere.

Then there was the marriage to ‘60s collegiate rabble-rouser Tom Hayden, the perfect extension of her Vietnam War radicalism.

When that love went on the rocks, she paired up with Ted Turner, the brilliant but personally troubled media mogul, in a match that seemed certain to explode. And it did – surprisingly, over Fonda’s born-again Christianity and Turner’s inability to handle that leap of faith.

Problems? It isn’t until the end, when she discusses her faith journey, that there is a relief from an ever-present whine. It’s a big price for readers to pay and, frankly, it’s tough to say that the effort is worth the payoff.

For the bulk of her life, Jane Fonda did pretty much what she wanted to do, without any real rudder and sense of self. Ever ready to be a pawn of pretty much anyone willing to put up with her and her rich tastes, she tries to appear the naive waif swept along by forces that she could not control.

Virtually unapologetic and ever ready with an excuse, only near the end of her life has she encountered the introspection that many others find much earlier. Enough, already.