Author of the week: Jane Fonda

last updated 8 January 2015

“As Jane Fonda goes, so goes America,” said Johanna Schneller in the Toronto Globe and Mail. In the public eye for most of her 73 years, the Oscar-winning actress has been on the front lines of many of the country’s cultural revolutions—sexual, anti-war, not to mention fitness. “I actually never lead,” she says. “There’s always something there first, and then I am the cheerleader for it.” Fonda has been called just about every name in the book, with the possible exception of lazy. Fonda’s refusal to bow to life’s struggles has propelled her into her latest round of cheering, this time on behalf of staying active during what she calls life’s “third act.” Her new book, Prime Time, is a candid, chatty discussion of aging, covering, she says, “everything from physics to penile implants.”

Fonda views Prime Time as a repayment to those of her generation who have stuck by her, said Nancy Hass in TheDailyBeast.com. “I feel like I need to be there for them. We’re the first generation to be in this situation, to be aging but also to be active and really alive. There just aren’t any road maps. It’s terrifying.” If playing guru means having to share uncomfortable truths, so be it. “I think it’s important for everyone to know that people in their 70s can be sexually active,” she says. “They don’t have to be, of course, and lots of people have opted out of that, but they can be. I can be. I mean, I am.” Her candor, she insists, has always had a point. “I feel like my honesty gives people the freedom to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise.”