Excerpt: 'My Life So Far'

April 5, 2005 — -- Jane Fonda, actress, activist, feminist, workout guru and role model, has written an extraordinary memoir, "My Life So Far," which hits bookstores today. Fonda divides her life so far into three acts.

Act one covers her often painful childhood, her early films and her turbulent marriage to filmmaker Roger Vadim. In act two, she begins to discover her activism and discusses her marriages to Tom Hayden and Ted Turner. And in act three, she begins to confront her demons and tries to live her life in a more conscious way.

You can read an excerpt from "My Life So Far" below.

Chapter One: Butterfly

Stay near me -- do not take thy flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,

Historian of my infancy!-- William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"

I sat cross-legged on the floor of the tiny home I'd created out ofcardboard boxes. The walls were so high that all I could see if I lookedup was the white-painted tongue-and-groove ceiling of the glassed-inporch so common in Connecticut in the 1940s. The porch ran the entirelength of the house and smelled of mildew. Light from the windowsbounced off the ceiling down to where I sat, so I didn't need a lamp as Iworked on the saddle. I was eleven years old.

It was an English saddle, my half sister Pan's, from the time beforeshe'd gotten married, sold her horse, and moved to New York City -- fromthe time when we still believed things would work out all right.I held the saddle on my lap, rubbing saddle soap into the beautiful,rich leather, over and over ... Make it better. I know I can make it better.The smell of saddle soap was comforting. So was the smallness of myhome. This was a place where I could be sure of things. No one was allowedin here but me -- not my brother, Peter, not anyone. Everythingwas always arranged just so -- the saddle, the soap, the soft rags foldedcarefully, and my book of John Masefield poems. Neatness was important...something to count on.

Mother was home for a while and if I leaned forward ever soslightly, I could look out my "door" down the length of the porch, towhere she sat at an oilcloth-covered table on which stood a Mason jar.A butterfly would be beating its wings frantically against the glass wallsof the jar, and I could see my mother pick up a cotton ball with tweezers,dip it into a bottle of ether, unscrew the top of the jar, and carefullydrop in the ether-soaked ball. After a minute, I could see the butterfly'swings begin to slow their mad fluttering, until gradually they wouldstop moving altogether. Peace. A whiff of ether drifted down to where Isat, making me think of the dentist. I knew just what the butterfly felt,because whenever I went to have my braces tightened, the nurse wouldput a mask over my nose and tell me to breathe deeply. In no time theedges of my body would begin to disappear. Sound would come to mefrom far away and I would feel a wonderful, cosmic abandon as I fellbackward down a dark hole, like Alice to Wonderland. Oh, I wished thatI could make that sensation last forever. I didn't feel sorry at all for thebutterfly.

After a while, mother would unscrew the lid; gently remove the butterflywith the long tweezers; carefully, lovingly, pierce its body with apin; and mount it on a white board on the wall above the table. Therewere at least a dozen of them up there, different kinds of swallowtails, asouthern dogface, a red admiral, a clouded sulphur, and a monarch. Inever could decide which one was my favorite.

Once she took me with her to a meadow full of wildflowers and tallgrasses where she went to catch her butterflies. There was still an abundanceof wild places -- swamps, unexplored forests, and meadows -- inGreenwich, Connecticut, in the 1940s. I watched as she moved throughthe grass -- her blond, sun-blushed hair blowing in the wind -- swoopingdown with her green net, then flipping the net quickly to close off thebutterfly's escape route. I would help her get it safely into a jar andquickly screw the top on.

It puzzled me a little why Mother had decided to take up butterflycollecting. I don't remember her ever doing this when we lived in California.I was the one fascinated with butterflies. I was always paintingpictures of them. When I was ten, right before we'd moved from California,I gave my father a drawing for his birthday. "Butterflies by JaneFonda" was written up in the right-hand corner, and then two rows ofthem with their names written underneath in my tight, straight-upand-down-careful-not-to-reveal-anything handwriting. My letter said:

May 19, 1948.

Dear Dad,

I did not trace these drawings of butterflies. I hope you had ahappy birthday. I heard you on the Bing Crosby program. Every twodays I will send you another picture of butterflies.Love, Jane.

By the time Mother took up the butterfly hobby, I had turned eleven,Peter was nine, and we were living in our second rented house in Connecticut.It was a rambling two-story wood house perched atop a steephill overlooking a tollgate on the Merritt Parkway. I could look out mybedroom window and count the cars. Prior to the move east, we'd grownup in California's Santa Monica Mountains and, instead of a tollgate, welooked out onto the vast, shimmering Pacific Ocean. Maybe that is whymy childhood fantasies of conquering all the enemies of the world wereso expansive. Had I grown up overlooking the tollgate, I might have seenmyself as an accountant.

This new house was on a large piece of property bordered to thewest by an immense hardwood forest that, in the winter, became a leaflessgray fortress. Then in the spring, dogwood would bloom, hopefuland white through the layered forest gray, and redbud would add slashesof magenta. By May, an array of greens would transform the woodsonce again. For someone who had spent the first ten years of her life seasonlessin California, this ever-changing palette seemed miraculous.

The house had an uncomfortable Charles Addams-y quality aboutit, always too dark and chilly, and it had far more rooms than there werepeople living there, which added a sense of impermanence and awkwardnessto its hilltop perch. There was Grandma Seymour (Mother'smother), Peter, me, and a Japanese-American maid named Katie. Petersays Katie's familiar presence with us after three years was comforting tohim. I, on the other hand, barely remember her. But then Peter got moreattached to people than I did. I was the Lone Ranger.

Mother wasn't with us much anymore, though I didn't know why. Itwas during one of the periods when she was back from wherever it wasshe went that the butterfly collection was started. Maybe someone hadsuggested that she get herself a hobby. Peter and I had stopped payingmuch attention to her being away, or at least I had. It had simply becomea fact of our lives: Mother would be there, and then she wouldn't. Whenshe wasn't there, and even when she was, Grandma Seymour would bein charge of us. Grandma was a strong woman, a constant presence inour early lives. But though I loved her, I don't remember ever runningjoyfully into her arms the way my own grandchildren do with me. I don'tremember her ever imparting grandmotherly wisdom or even being funto be with. She was a more formal, stalwart presence. But she was alwaysthere to meet our external needs.

Around the house there'd be an occasional murmured mention of ahospital or of an illness, and right after we'd moved to Greenwich,Mother had been in Johns Hopkins Hospital for a long time, for an operationon a dropped kidney. Grandma took Peter and me to visit her thereonce, and I remember Mother telling me they'd almost cut her in half.But she'd been "ill" and in hospitals so much that it had lost any realmeaning. Hospitals were supposed to make you well so you could comehome and stay.

Ever since we had moved to Greenwich I had spent a lot of time inhospitals myself -- me, the healthy one. I'd developed blood poisoning,then chronic ear infections; then I started breaking bones. My arm wasbroken the first time during a wrestling match with a boy, Teddy Wahl,the son of the man who ran the nearby Round Hill Stables and RidingClub.Teddy threw me against a stall door. It hurt, but Iwalked home anddidn't say anything -- between Peter and Mother, we had enoughhypochondriacs in the house. I was not going to complain. Instead, I satin front of the black-and-white TV to watch The Howdy Doody Show, myfavorite because it regularly included a short Lone Ranger film.

I sat carefully on my hands, as I always did when Dad was home, becauseI was scared he would see that I was still biting my fingernails. Aswe sat down to eat, Dad asked me if I'd washed my hands, and when Itold him I hadn't, he exploded in anger, pulled me out of my seat andinto the bathroom, turned on the faucet, took the broken arm (which I'dbeen holding limply by my side), and thrust it under the water. I passedout. He'd no idea that I was hurt and was very apologetic as he rushedme to the hospital, where my arm was X-rayed and put into a cast. Theworst part was that all this happened right before school started, my firstyear at the all-girls Greenwich Academy -- just at the time when everybodywould be checking out who was cool (we called it "neat" backthen), who was good at field hockey, and whom they wanted to be friendswith, I had to show up with my arm in a cast.

At the time, Dad was starring in the Broadway smash hit "MisterRoberts." I now realize that I must have sensed that something was verywrong between my parents. Palpable tension was in the air: Dad's angerand black moods; Mother's increasing absences. Even if I had had thewords to express what I "knew," I'd already learned that no one wouldlisten to words that spoke about feelings. So instead, my body was sendingout distress signals.

There's a set of photos of us taken around that time. Just after we leftCalifornia, Harper's Bazaar had come out to interview Dad and take picturesof the family "picnicking" -- one of those setup jobs that make thechildren of movie stars feel like props. The pictures show us sitting onthe lawn: Dad, Mother, Peter, me, and Pan (my half sister, the one withthe saddle), who at sixteen was beautiful and remarkably voluptuous.There is one photograph in particular that says it all. I discovered itin a scrapbook many years of therapy later, when I was able to see it withmore perception and compassion. Dad is in the foreground leaning backon his elbows, looking as if he's got something really good going on inhis head that has nothing to do with all of us. I am kneeling next to him,looking intently at him, as I often did in our family pictures, showingclearly whose side I was on. Behind me Peter is playing with the cat, andPan is lounging glamorously. And then, in the background, almost likean outsider, there's Mother, leaning forward toward us with an expressionof pain and anxiety on her face. I feel so sad when I look at that face,which I've done often with a magnifying glass.

Why couldn't I have known? Why wasn't I nicer? I was ten years old.Dad had come out of the Navy at the end of World War II and (whatfelt like) the very next day had gone off to New York to start rehearsalsfor "Mister Roberts" while we stayed in California. When it became clearthat the play was in for a long run, Mother decided to put our home upfor sale and move east. She settled on Greenwich, thinking that thethirty-five-minute train or car ride from New York City would makeweekend commutes easy for Dad. Plus, in that well-heeled Connecticutenclave, there would be homes to rent on large enough pieces of propertyso that Peter and I could continue our habit of roaming the outdoors.My parents were at least right about that part.

I don't remember Dad being around much after we moved to Greenwich.When he was there, I could almost feel his energy pulling himback toward New York, though I didn't really know why. I supposed itwas just that Mother, Peter, and I weren't all that interesting. When he'dvisit us I could sense that he didn't really want to be there. But Dad hadbeen an Eagle Scout, and the commitment to doing one's duty was embeddedin his DNA. I wish the Scouts had taught him how to make itseem less like a duty.

Sometimes Dad would come out on a Sunday and take Peter and mefishing for flounder in nearby Long Island Sound. Dad was usually in abad mood, which meant these excursions weren't exactly "fun times,"but I enjoyed them anyway -- all of us together in the little rented motorboat,the salty smells mixed with engine fumes, the anticipation as we'dpull out of the harbor, round the buoy, and head to sea. Because flounderare bottom feeders, we'd never go out very far before Dad would turnoff the motor and tell us to bait our hooks. This was always the momentof reckoning.

Baiting the hook meant reaching into a bucket filled with reddishbrown kelp, among which writhed long reddish brown bloodwormswith what appeared to be claws in their heads. Peter didn't like them atall. Peter, in fact, would refuse to touch them -- which in itself took guts.Dad wouldn't even try to disguise the disgust he felt about Peter's squeamishness,and his moods would get blacker and blacker. Whereupon I,the Lone Ranger, would ride to the rescue and be man enough for both ofus. I'd pick up that worm and stick the hook right through its squirmyhead without even a shudder. I didn't do this to make Peter look bad. Iloved my brother. I just wanted to prove my toughness to Dad and makethe tension go away.

Peter was who he was. When he was scared he showed it; if he wassick, he'd complain about it -- damn the consequences. I often wishedhe'd pretend like I did, just to make things easier. But, no, Peter was himself.And I, well, I'd gotten into the habit of leaving myself behind someplacein order to win Dad's approval. Make things better. I know I can makethings better.

Once, Dad had us come into the city and took us to the circus. A NewYork columnist, Radie Harris, who knew our family, was also there andwas quoted as saying:

I remember sitting in a box at the circus a few months after "MisterRoberts" opened. Hank sat just to my right. With him were Jane andPeter, and not once during the entire performance did he say a word toeither child. And either the children knew enough to say nothing, orthey might have been too intimidated to speak. He didn't buy themhot dogs, cotton candy, or treat them to souvenirs. When the circuswas over, they simply stood up and walked out. I felt sorry for allthree of them.

Then one day, when I'd just finished breakfast and was heading outthe door to school, I saw that Mother was standing at the entrance to theliving room. She motioned me to come to her. "Jane," she said, "if anyonetells you that your father and I are getting divorced, tell them you alreadyknow."

That was it. And off to school I went.

I had realized the year before that parents getting divorced didn'tmean that you, the child, would fall through a crack in the floor and noone would ever look for you again. Some of my friends had divorced parentsand seemed to have survived just fine. I do remember that day atschool feeling a little out of body, as if I'd had some of the dentist's ether,but I also felt oddly important and deserving of special attention. Divorceswere fairly uncommon in those days.

A few days after "divorce" had been uttered (only to me, not to Peter)I was lying on Mother's bed with her and she asked if I wanted to see herscar from her recent kidney operation. I didn't really want to. But sinceshe'd asked, I felt she needed to show it to me and that I shouldn't say no.She pulled up her satin pajama top and lowered the pants and there ...oh, horror -- that's why they were getting divorced! Who would want tolive with someone who'd been cut in half and had a thick, wide pink scarthat ran all around her waist? It was terrifying.

"I've lost all my stomach muscle," she said sadly. "Doesn't that lookawful?" What did she want me to say, that it wasn't bad? Or did she wantme to agree with her?

"And look at this," she said, showing me one of her breasts. The nipplewas all distorted. I felt so bad for her -- it must have hurt so much -- but I also didn't want to be her daughter. I wanted to wake up anddiscover I was adopted. I wanted a mother who looked healthy and beautiful,at whom a father would want to look when she had no clothes on.Maybe then he'd want to stay at home. This was all her fault.I think it was around that time, maybe right there on that bed, thatI vowed I would do whatever it took to be perfect so that a man wouldlove me. Fifty-three years later, Pan told me that Mother had had abotched breast implant. I guess Mother had tried to be perfect, too. I willreturn to the sad topic of breast implants in act two.

Howard Teichmann, who wrote my father's authorized biography,"My Life," wrote that when Dad told my mother he wanted a divorce, shesaid, "Well, all right, Hank. Good luck, Hank."

In retrospect, Fonda says, "I've got to tell you she was absolutelywonderful...She accepted it. She was sympathetic. She couldn'thave been more understanding."

Yeah, sure. Mother was acting by the rules. If she could love theright way -- selflessly, with understanding and no anger -- perhaps Dadwould come back to her. In private, though, she was disintegrating. Shehacked off her hair with nail scissors and, while staying in a friend'sNew York apartment, walked the neighborhood in her nightgown.In those days, I too walked in my nightgown, but in my sleep, alwayspropelled by the same nightmare: I was in the wrong room and desperatelyneeded to get out, get back to where I was supposed to be. It wasdark and cold and I never could find the door. In my sleep I would actuallymove large pieces of furniture around my bedroom trying to find theway out, and then, because it was futile, I would give up and get back inbed. The next morning the furniture would have to be moved back intoplace. It was a nightmare that stayed with me -- albeit with variations onwhere I was trying to get to -- until I married Ted Turner, when I wasfifty-four.

One of my most vivid memories of that time was sitting in silence atthe dinner table in that spooky house on the hill -- Peter, Grandma,Mother, and me. Through the window I could see the gray March landscape.Mother, at the head of the table, was crying silently into her food.It was spinach and Spam. We ate a lot of canned food in those days, asthough the war and food rationing were still going on. I used to wonderabout this, but now I know that Mother was terrified of running out ofmoney and not receiving anything from Dad in the divorce.

No one said anything about the fact that Mother was crying. Maybewe feared that if one of us put words to what we saw and heard, lifewould implode into an unfathomable sadness so heavy the air wouldn'tbear it. Not even after we left the table was anything said. Grandmanever took us aside to explain what was happening. Perhaps if "it" wasnot named, "it" would not exist. Peter and I went to our rooms as always,to do our homework. The dinner scene got buried in a graveyard somewherenext door to my heart, and the habit of not dealing with feelingsbecame embedded in another generation.

But life goes on, as life does -- until it doesn't, especially when you'rein the discovery mode of an eleven-year-old. That year I managed to takea horse over a four-foot jump for the first time and became obsessed withthe card game canasta. And Brooke Hayward and I began a successfulwriting partnership that won us "Best Short Story" awards at GreenwichAcademy.

Within walking distance of the house was a riding stable -- not thebig one where Teddy Wahl broke my arm, but a small one with only anoutdoor riding ring, where I often took jumping lessons on a borrowedwhite horse named Silver. My best friend, Diana Dunn, took lessons there,too. We both adored the teacher, a cozy Irishman named Mike Carroll.Next to being inside my cardboard "home" with my sister's saddle, thiswas where I most liked to be. Horses were my passion, my escape.

Grandma told me many years later that it was around this time thatMother had been moved, on the advice of her doctors, from the AustenRiggs Center, a more open residence for the affluent "mentally afflicted"in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to the Craig House sanitarium in Beacon,New York. The doctors said that her emotional deterioration andsuicidal tendencies required she be under constant guard. Grandma waswith her for the move and told me that Mother was in a straitjacket anddidn't recognize her. I can't manage to wrap my mind around that imageof Mother in a straitjacket, or what Grandma's anguish must have been.One day Mother came home accompanied by a uniformed nurse. Irefused to see her. I was playing jacks with Peter on the hardwood floorupstairs when she arrived in a limousine. Grandma called for us to comedown.

"Peter." I grabbed his arm. "Don't go down. I'm not going to. Let'sjust stay up here and play jacks. I'll let you win. Okay?"

"No, I'm going," Peter said, and he went downstairs.

Why didn't I go down? Was I so angry with her for not being therefor us? Was it I'll-show-you-I-don't-need-you-either?

I never saw her again.

She must have known it would be her last time home. She'd come, Iguess, to say good-bye -- but also to get the small razor that she kept in ablack enamel box given to her years before by her friend Eulalia Chapin.Apparently, she had rushed upstairs and just managed to slip the razorinto her purse when the nurse, who'd been sent to make sure such athing didn't happen, caught up to her.

A month later, in April, on her forty-second birthday, Mother wrotesix notes -- one each to Peter, Pan, and me; one to her mother; one to hernurse, telling her not to go into the bathroom but to call the doctor; andone to the doctor, her psychiatrist: "Dr. Bennett, you've done everythingpossible for me. I'm sorry, but this is the best way out."

Then she went into her bathroom in the Craig House sanitarium,carefully withdrew the razor she'd managed to keep hidden, and cut herthroat. She was still alive when Dr. Bennett arrived, but she died a fewminutes later.

The fluttering slowed; the wings grew still. Then peace.

I came home from school that afternoon, and as I walked through thefront door, Grandma called down to me from her bedroom at the top ofthe stairs.

"Jane, something's happened to your mother. She's had a heart attack.Your father is on his way here right now. Please stay in the houseand wait for him. Don't go out."

I turned right around, ran out the door, and ran all the way to thestables, where I was to have a riding lesson. I don't remember feelinganything at all, though I must have known something serious was happening,because Dad didn't just travel out from the city unexpectedly ona weekday.

In the middle of my lesson the phone in the stable rang. It was Dadtelling whoever answered to make me come home immediately. But Itook my time. There were so many dead bugs and interesting rocks in thedirt driveway that I needed to stop and examine. Eventually, when Icould find no more ways to stall, I trudged up the hill. A strange car wasparked at the bottom of the steps. Must be Dad's rental, I thought with ashudder. In some deep part of me that wasn't my mind, some part thatcould keep secrets from the rest of me, I knew what was coming. My consciousmind knew this was all a dream, that I was about to wake up. Iopened the heavy front door and walked into the living room. Nobodyhad turned on any lights, and the room seemed grayer than usual. Dadand Grandmother were sitting up very straight, each on a differentcouch, facing each other. Dad took me on his lap and told me that mymother had had a heart attack and was dead.

Dead. Now, there's a word. Short, heavy. I felt myself holding it in myhands, like a brick. Dead, like the butterflies mounted on that board on theother side of the living room wall. Her jars and tweezers were lying spreadaround on the table out there. I'd seen them only yesterday when I'd gone topolish the saddle. She couldn't be dead. She hadn't put her things away. MaybeI was dreaming. Then I was outside my body looking back at myself, waitingfor myself to react. Everything was familiar, yet nothing was thesame. From another room came the loud ticking of a clock -- jarring,wrong. Didn't it know that time no longer mattered? I noticed wrinklesin the chintz slipcovers and tried to smooth them out. Make it better. Iknow I can make it better.

Peter came home a few minutes later. Dad got up and switched seatswith Grandma, taking Peter on his lap and repeating the story to him. Ihad to get away from all of them, to be by myself, try to get myself backinto my body, figure out how I felt.

"Excuse me, please. I'm going to my room."

I could hear Peter crying as I followed myself upstairs. Sitting on theedge of my bed, I wondered why I couldn't cry, like Peter. "Mother's dead. Iwill never see her again." I said it over and over to myself, trying to bringup some tears. But I felt nothing.

I remembered that I had stayed upstairs the day she'd come homefor the last time. Why hadn't I gone down to see her? I felt something beginto stir in my chest. Ah, here it comes. I'm normal. But the feeling skitteredaway and I went outside myself again, and again I went numb.When I was in my forties and the tears for Mother did finally come -- unexpectedly and for no apparent reason -- they were unstoppable. Theycame from so deep within me that I feared I wouldn't survive them, thatmy heart would crack open, and like Humpty-Dumpty, I'd never be ableto be put back together again.

Grandmother and Dad arranged to have Mother cremated, and thenDad drove back into the city in time for his performance of "MisterRoberts." Didn't miss a beat. I don't think this implied he didn't feel anything;it's just that Dad didn't know how to deal with feelings or toprocess pain. He knew only how to cover it up. Or maybe he'd grownnumb, like me. Maybe I learned it from him.

As soon as Dad left the house, I went into Mother's room and founda favorite purse of hers, with its special lipstick smell. On the bedsidetable lay her dog-eared copy of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends andInfluence People." Everywhere -- on the floor of her closet, in her coatpocket -- there were pieces of her unfinished -- never to be finished -- life.In the medicine cabinet all the little bottles were lined up: FRANCES FONDA,with dates of expiration -- but she'd expired first -- lined up like orphans.Like me. Would they be thrown out now? Would I?

My girlhood friend Diana Dunn told me recently that her father saidto her, "Jane's mother has just died and we have to go to her house andbring her here." Dad or Grandmother must have called and told him.Diana says I stayed with them for several days, but not one word was everspoken about Mother's death. "You never cried," she said. "I felt fearthen. Your mother had just died and I didn't understand why no one saidanything to you. You were my best friend. I loved you and I didn't knowwhat to do for you."

Never in all the subsequent years, all the way to his own death, didDad and I ever mention Mother. I was afraid it would upset him. I wassure he felt guilty because he'd asked for the divorce. Make it better. Idon't even know if he knew that I knew the heart attack story wasn'ttrue. Don't ask, don't tell. Peter, on the other hand, wore it all on bothsleeves. The following Christmas, eight months after her death, Dadcame up from New York City to open presents with us in Greenwich,where we were being looked after by Grandma and Katie, the maid. Peterhad filled an entire wingback chair with presents for Mother and a letterhe'd written to her. Looking back, it is so terribly sad and poignant, aneleven-year-old boy needing to let his mother know he loved her andmissed her and wanted people to acknowledge her. But, oh God, nothinghe could have done could have made that Christmas Day any worse. Iwas furious with Peter and sided with Dad, who seemed to see Peter's behavioras a play for sympathy. What a thought!

In the week that followed Mother's death, my seventh-grade teachersseemed to go out of their way to be kind and understanding. I becameaware that the rap on me was just what I had hoped: that I wasremarkably brave and took everything in stride. What was really happening,though, was that I was getting psychic perks for shutting down!What had been a tendency for most of my young life was now beingpraised, and I began to hone this into a fine art: You don't really feel whatyou feel; you didn't really hear what you heard. It's not that I consciously didthese things -- buried them. It's just that I'd been doing it for so long thatI had begun to live that way. I simply didn't know anymore what I knewor wanted or thought or felt -- or even who I was in an embodied way. Iwould become whatever I felt the people whose love and attention Ineeded wanted me to be. I would try to be perfect. It was safer there. Itwas a survival mechanism that served me well -- back then.

Excerpted with permission from "My Life So Far," by Jane Fonda. Published by Random House. Copyright © 2005 Jane Fonda.