THAT said, in the 10 years I took to write her biography, I observed many Janes. I saw the Jane with the agenda; the girlish, self-effacing Jane when she’s with men; the armchair shrink Jane who spouts advice about sex and love and exercise as if by rote whenever she’s on TV; the ruthless, hard-as-nails Jane in business and self-promotion; the generous Jane with friends in need; the loving grandmother-matriarch Jane; the celebrity Jane who in May walked down the red carpet at Cannes in a glittery white gown and left all the young starlets in her dust. Patricia Bosworth, in the NY Times, September 25, 2011.
What is this? I mind it. All the young starlets “in her dust”? You mean, she can be smart and shrewd and giving and all that and, oh, just for the fun of it, let’s march down that red carpet at the age of 70 and prove that I am still more desirable than, say, Greta Gerwig, or Anne Hathaway, or Jessica Alba.
Poof! It’s not dust, Patricia, it’s dried up embalming fluid.
Is that what it takes to get access to Fonda, and to her friends and professional colleagues? To make sure that she understands that your biography will include lines like “and left all the young starlets in her dust”? After the Viet Nam War and Roger Vadim and Tom Hayden and “Klute” and Ted Turner– that’s ultimately what always really mattered, isn’t it?
To leave “all the young starlets in her dust”?
What’s the article really about? About how really amazing Patricia Bosworth is, really just as mysterious and alluring and deep and beautiful, as Jane Fonda, with whom she is ever so close. Because, after all, she and Jane share a deep, dark, secret, one that is so profound that all of your friends would want to know, if only they could be trusted to not spoil it.
What was on Henry Fonda’s mind the night he performed in “Mr. Roberts” after his wife slit her own throat? Jane thought he just didn’t know how to deal with grief. But it’s all a puzzle to Jane. Why didn’t she feel grief? Why didn’t she cry? Rather than acknowledge that much of what passes for grief nowadays is more like grief theatre anyways, she thinks there must have been something wrong with her, that she was trying too hard to please daddy.
Let’s all wonder about it.
The beautiful, dewy photo of Ms. Fonda on the book’s front cover is a miracle of photography, fitness and plastic surgery, probably all three. NY Times, Janet Maslin, 2011-08-18