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" Sometimes it feels like a half century of American women&amp;#039;s history has been written on the body of Jane Fonda. She&amp;#039;s been a Vassar girl and a space age pinup; the expat wife to Roger Vadim and an antiwar activist still known as Hanoi Jane; the aerobics mogul helpmate to liberal politician Tom Hayden; the fly-fishing wife of billionaire Ted Turner; a teen pregnancy prevention pioneer; and a born-again Christian. But if popular and political culture have been etched on Fonda, it&amp;#039;s only right, given the indelible marks she&amp;#039;s made on our cinematic history. For more than four decades, Fonda has created characters drawn from every corner of the American imagination: the cartoonish cowgirl of Cat Ballou (1965), the Earth girl of Barbarella (1968), a Neil Simon newlywed in Barefoot in the Park (1967). Fonda brought us prostitute Bree Daniels (1971&amp;#039;s Klute), a Depression-era dance marathoner (1969&amp;#039;s They Shoot Horses, Don&amp;#039;t They?), Lillian Hellman circa WWII (1977&amp;#039;s Julia), and a plucky, pissed-off daughter in On Golden Pond (1981). But who better to embody the glories of American womanhood than Fonda, a performer so hale that her varied roles radiate brains and backbone to spare. This mistress of brisk capability must have had guidance along her hairpin turn of a career. Who were Fonda&amp;#039;s mentors? &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t have any, frankly,&amp;quot; she says with her gutsy twang, a voice so familiar that it might as well be made of grass and slate and soil. The closest she got, she says, was her On Golden Pond mother, Katharine Hepburn, whom she writes about admiringly in her 2005 memoir My Life So Far. But the great Kate came into Fonda&amp;#039;s life too late to guide her through the wilds of her early years. &amp;quot;Had I known her earlier, I think I would have turned to her,&amp;quot; Fonda says. As it was, the actress, like her country, is sui generis. Fonda (whose reserved father, Henry, was a Hollywood legend) &amp;quot;backed into acting.&amp;quot; She didn&amp;#039;t even enjoy it much until she began developing her own projects, which allowed her not only to ensure the quality of her parts, but also to weave her burgeoning political passions into her acting career with films such as Coming Home (1978), a love story about a wounded Vietnam veteran, and 9 to 5 (1980), a slapstick but astute satire about the shoulder-padded arrival of women in the workplace. These days, Fonda wishes she had material so good. She says most of the parts offered to her are older characters (&amp;quot;who are all so dour. I don&amp;#039;t want to do dour&amp;quot;). &amp;quot;The notion that age is a state of decline is a very old paradigm,&amp;quot; says Fonda, who is 70. &amp;quot;The last third of life is an extraordinary potential time for development and growth if we want it to be.&amp;quot; So what would Fonda tell those Hollywood sprites (hello, Lindsay) still in the first third? That she believes young women have it harder than she did. &amp;quot;There were movie magazines when I started,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Tiny little things with nice photographs and bios. They weren&amp;#039;t taking pictures of stars pulling up their pants and taking out the garbage.&amp;quot; Fonda frets that the tabloid-fueled cult of celebrity creates impossible beauty standards, likely barring talented women from making it to the screen at all. &amp;quot;Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Simmons, Myrna Loy could not have made it today,&amp;quot; she says. For those who have passed the weigh-in, Fonda has this advice: &amp;quot;You have to be psychologically equipped to accept rejection after rejection after rejection.&amp;quot; She pauses. &amp;quot;And you have to be sure that if you get accepted, you don&amp;#039;t take it personally.&amp;quot;  ELLE: You&amp;#039;ve been in Hollywood for more than 40 years. Have things improved for women? JF: On a scale of one to 10, 10 representing full and equal participation of women in Hollywood, I&amp;#039;d say we are about a six.  ELLE: Why is it so important that women be full and equal participants in Hollywood? JF: When women are responsible for what movies get made, 51 percent of the population can better see themselves represented in the culture of film, which is hugely influential. When we are not present or when we are seen through the lens of men\u2014 not necessarily hostile men or men doing anything bad on purpose, but because men&amp;#039;s sensibilities are different\u2014 our essence, our sensibilities, are not there. So without even being conscious of it, we don&amp;#039;t feel that we&amp;#039;re important.  ELLE: What was the best era for women in the film industry? JF: The early twentieth century, when there were heads of studios for whom movies ran in their veins. They loved their stars, including the great women. They protected them, built their careers, groomed and elevated them. Then television and Wall Street came along, and Hollywood became a bottom line business.  ELLE: Your melding of art and politics was groundbreaking. Who in Hollywood is doing that now? JF: Clooney is very good at it. His films, like Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana, are terrific. The trick is to embed the &amp;quot;issue&amp;quot; in stylistic content. 9 to 5 was a comedy. Coming Home was a love story. The China Syndrome was a thriller. You have to make a movie people want to see even if they didn&amp;#039;t agree with or weren&amp;#039;t interested in the issue.  ELLE: Are you optimistic about the future of older women on screen? JF: It&amp;#039;s hopeful, because there are more older women than ever. Our forms of cultural expression\u2014TV, radio, movies\u2014are going to have to adjust to this new demographic. SEE MORE WOMEN IN HOLLYWOOD:  Halle BerryCatherine HardwickeNicole KidmanAnne HathawaySigourney WeaverSalma HayekIsla Fisher "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a9000/jane-fonda-237037/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>