Jane Fonda is one of the most durable and transformative figures in American film. This actress reinvented herself across five decades without ever losing the thread of what made her compelling in the first place. She broke through with Barbarella (1968) and went on to a career that includes Klute (1971), Coming Home (1978), The China Syndrome (1979), and On Golden Pond (1981), collecting two Academy Awards for Best Actress along the way. Her influence has extended well beyond performance into activism and cultural biography, and she remains one of the few figures from the New Hollywood era whose presence still commands a room.

On screen, Fonda has always carried a directness that registers as intelligence before anything else, and the camera has responded to that quality across every decade of her career. The sharp bone structure, the physicality she has maintained with famous discipline, and a face that has remained one of the most photographed in the world since the nineteen sixties give her a presence that younger actresses still measure themselves against. She is currently one of the most watchable people on television, and her work in Grace and Frankie demonstrated that the timing and the appetite for the work have been held completely intact.