Quotes

 

 

 

In this particular page, you’ll find a collection of quotes that Henry Fonda had said and also things that had been said about him. You’ll also find some excerpts I found in magazines or interviews where they mentioned or talked about Mr. Fonda as well as other kinds of references pertaining to him.

 

 

Straight From Fonda’s Mouth

 

“Jane came this close to being Barbara Stanwyck’s daughter.” (referring to the flirtation that happened during the set of “The Lady Eve”)

 

"I despised that film. You can't tell an audience who saw only the movie, 'You should've caught the play.'" (Talking about his movie, Mister Roberts)

  

“Everyone who is close to me knows I’ve been in love with Barbara Stanwyck since I met her. She’s a delicious woman. We’ve never had an affair. She’s never encouraged me, but dammit by wife will verify it, my daughters and son will confirm it, and now you can testify to the truth.”

 

“Love scenes are difficult for me not just because they’re in front of camera. I’ve never felt like a terrific lover on screen or in private”

 

“It’s difficult for me to meet new people. I’m not easy to talk to. I don’t have ready conversation.”

 

“Jim Stewart and I played together in a thing called Firecreek. You know, someone had the bright idea of making me the villain. I played a bad guy who tried to kill Jim Stewart. Now, any man who tries to kill Jim Stewart has to be marked as a man who’s plain rotten. You can’t get much worse than that.”

 

“I don’t like funerals and it’s in my will that there won’t be one, not even a memorial.”

 

“I’m not a religious man, but I thank God every morning that I lived long enough to play that role. On Golden Pond, how can I describe the experience? Magic, I think. Magic!”

 

“I am not a very interesting person. I haven’t ever done anything except be other people. I ain’t really Henry Fonda! Nobody could be. Nobody could have that much integrity”

 

“I’m not that pristine pure, I guess I’ve broken as many rules as the next feller. But I reckon my face looks honest enough and if people but it, Hallelujah!”  

 

 

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Quotes from the Fonda Dynasty

 

 “I was like that, like the boy. It had to do with identity. Me, Henry Fonda's son. I knew he, Henry Fonda, was my father. But I didn't know who I was. Oh, I knew I was Peter. But they all thought of me as Henry Fonda's son. Unfortunately, for them, they never got to know me, Peter. I always seemed to disappoint them. They expected me to be different than Henry. Or to be exactly like Henry. I was neither.” Peter Fonda

 

“I know a lot of attractive men but I think Fonda is the most attractive man in the world. I love to look at him. I love to look at his face, not only because he’s handsome, but because he has wonderful expressions. He’s a study. His whole body is a study. I love to watch what he does with his hands when he’s acting, painting, whatever. His hands are always in motion. I love to watch him walk, sit, read. I even like to watch him sleep. He’s so special.” Shirlee Fonda

 

“My dad wouldn’t have any problems learning the lines. That son of a gun could memorize the phone book, both ways” Peter Fonda

 

“As a grandfather let’s put it this way. There is something awesome about him that make his grandchildren fascinated and they like to be around him, but they don’t know him very well. He doesn’t bounce them on his knee. I don’t think dad knows what a grandfather is supposed to do. But they all love him very much anyhow, my two and Peter’s two.” Jane Fonda

 

“I love to watch that side of him [in comedies]. He was drop dead gorgeous and had this innocence. Altogether the kind of male figure that a lot of women really like. He once said, "I'm not a seducer, but if a woman sets her mind to it, I can be easily seduced," and that's kind of the characters he played in the comedies.” Jane Fonda

 

“He hated the Actors Studio because the Method requires plumbing your depths. Dad hated process and emotions and probing. He lumped religion, psychoanalysis, and Method acting under the category of crutches.” Jane Fonda 

 

“He was learning lines for a stage play, and I gave him cue lines. I realized what he was doing was thinking about everything he was saying and would be doing while onstage. He was blocking it in his head in an emotional way, timing it with every little word. He always said, "I'm not a Method actor"; he couldn't see that he had a method.” Peter Fonda

 

“In my early thirties, I realized that he wasn't Tom Joad or Clarence Darrow or young Abe Lincoln or the character in The Ox-Bow Incident, but that he had chosen to do them because he believed in those values. I think he hoped some of it would rub off—and it did. I loved that about him.” Jane Fonda

 

“He had a game called Hide the Buttons: You take common objects and hide them in plain sight. He could hide a matchstick, and you could not see it. I think he learned how to hide the matchstick in his life. And somehow was able to fire that sucker up when he walked onstage.” Peter Fonda

 

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Quotes from Colleagues and Friends

 

 

“I remember Henry as a very sweet person, very quiet. He was endowed with enormous patience, great courtesy, and incredible concentration.” Margaret Hamilton

 

“There are some things Hank and I don’t have in common, but love of work isn’t one of them. I think if the studios hadn’t paid me, I would have paid them. Hank pretends he’s not crazy about moviemaking, but when we lived together, I never heard one complaint out of him. We liked to play and we liked to work, and they were both fun for us.” Jimmy Stewart

 

“I learned about acting just sitting there night after night, watching Henry Fonda. That man’s a total actor.” James Garner

 

“He’s a real pro and when you have a real pro, how can you miss?” Mervyn Leroy

 

“Roberts was my first experience with the biggies. Hank turned all of us into a family and we stayed that way through the years. That rarely happens in movies.” Jack Lemmon

 

“What is so fascinating to me about Fonda as a talent is I don’t think if you look a stick and beat him he could do anything false, he’s incapable. As a performer, as a man, he’s pure. He’s like a barometer of truth on the set. Fonda has the inner resource to make the lines deeply true. Great actor. I don’t use that term often” Sidney Lumet

 

“I revered him as an actor Both Sidney Lumet and I were rather hyper in those days and Hank kept everyone under control. He was very kind to me although everyone on the set thought he was removed, aloof, and remote. What he really was was terribly professional.” Susan Strasberg

 

“He’s got that quality of a great wine that suddenly begins to do unbelievable things as it gets older. What interests me is that he has  a sense of life being a marathon and of keeping something in reserve for the final stretches.” Peter Ustinov

 

“That man doesn’t change a writer’s comma. Not a comma, ever.” Jerome Lawrence

 

“Henry has been a guiding star in my life. He’s given me perimeters and guidelines, and structure. He’s a good man, a caring man.” Dorothy McGuire

 

“Henry Fonda’s not one to make new friends, and neither am I, but we got along okay. He has his own world. He likes to sit and fish, I like to walk through the woods alone. We are quite similar. He doesn’t waste time. No small talk. And I hate to have idiotic conversations. We found we could act together just like that.” Katharine Hepburn

 

“Hank was just deliciously cast. He did something that no one else could do better, and he was so funny and so moving that all the men up there were really mad about him… I think Hank has gotten to be a better actor, richer, more direct, more vulnerable.” Hepburn talking about On Golden Pond

 

“I learned from him to listen. I learned that professionalism means being sensitive to the needs of others in this most collaborative of all arts. And I learned to grow through his generosity. None of this was ever told to me by Hank. He doesn’t talk much. He just does. And he doesn’t act much. He just is.” Jane Alexander

 

“He said it was important to take creative risks, and if you didn't feel like you're putting your career on the line every couple of years, you're probably not challenging yourself and doing your profession justice. I took that to heart. He wanted to see my Super 8 movies and read my short scripts. He gave me my first film theory books. He was actually the first adult figure in my life to say, "Don't be afraid of chasing that dream." Ron Howard

 

“I bought a house from Paul Henreid, who'd bought it from Henry Fonda. I went down to the cellar for a fuse and the fuses were labeled Mr. Fonda's dressing room, Mr. Fonda's bedroom. I couldn't get over that. Paul Henreid had lived in the house for so many years. I called him and he said he couldn't bear to take Henry Fonda's name off, and I thought this was the sweetest tribute to an actor. Rob Reiner lives there now, and Rob wouldn't change those fuses for anything in the world.” Norman Lear

 

“He moved me always, this reserved man. There was a reason he was a star.” Sidney Lumet

 

“He said to me, there's one word that's used handily in this business: difficult. Some of these hot-shot actors are just spoiled. But many times if the hardworking artist is really digging into his character, a director or producer or another actor will accuse him or her of being difficult. It's a way of trying to whitewash their ineptitude.” Cliff Robertson

 

“I never heard Fonda raise his voice. Only when we were riding horses offstage, he would say to me, "If that son of a bitch doesn't stop, I'm going to lose my mind." It was always about Fritz Lang, a man who didn't know anything about Westerns. In one scene Lang said, "We're going to light it this way because of the shadows so you have to get on the horse on the right side." I said, "Mr. Lang, people don't get on on the right." He said, "Don't tell me what to do." Finally, Hank got the assistant director to take him aside, and he came out after a while and said, "Okay, you're going to get on the horse on the left side like you're supposed to." Jackie Cooper

 

“All he had to do was wag his little finger and he could steal a scene from anybody. In Spencer's Mountain when we found out that our son was not going to get a scholarship, it was a bloody good scene. He let the tears come into his eyes and trickle down his cheek.” Maureen O’Hara

 

“It was naïveté that allowed us to approach him, especially with a first-time director. He couldn't have been sweeter or more cooperative. What were we thinking? We were kids and we just said, "Henry Fonda would be great, let's ask him." I think a few times he couldn't stand our ignorance and might have given us a hint on cameraman was on top of us saying, "Claudia, you have to be sexy, sexy, sexy," and Henry was looking at him. It was very funny. how to save ourselves, but not in a way that was offensive or ungenerous.” Susan Sarandon

 

“We started shooting [Once Upon a Time in the West] in Cinecittà with the love scene. All the international press was seated around us. And the wife of Henry Fonda was next to the director. Can you imagine? I think he was a bit tense because the journalists were looking, but he didn't say a word. The cameraman was on top of us saying, "Claudia, you have to be sexy, sexy, sexy," and Henry was looking at him. It was very funny.” Claudia Cardinale

 

“What struck me was how easy he made it seem. He had his character at his fingertips, came in prepared, added and subtracted a little bit—and tried to quit early.” Paul Newman

 

“It's hard to say how he worked. It was truthful, lovely, involving, and yet you would have no idea what he had done. There was one scene towards the end [of "Thanksgiving"] that was just glorious to watch. I forgot to say cut. I was standing there with tears in my eyes. Finally, the cameramen said, "Do you wanna cut or not?" Joanne Woodward

 

“When he came to have his first dinner with us, he hardly spoke. I remember saying to Bogie, "God, I wonder if he's going to be able to talk to us." Lauren Bacall

 

“I worked with him for three months and I don't think I had three words with him. He didn't talk to anyone on the set. I asked Jimmy Stewart about it, and he said, "That's just how he is when he is working. He's always in the character." Shirley Jones

 

“On the set he would work on his draftsmanship. He was drawing screws. Just practicing drawing screws. I was fascinated with the care and the precision of the drawings.” Leonard Nimoy

 

“The first time we walked into the rehearsal space, Hank was waiting for us standing on the stage, and I said, "My God, he looks like a stallion." Arthur Penn

 

“I always thought he was walking in slow motion. You cannot meet on the street someone like this. Some people are very handsome, but when they're onscreen, nothing. He had this magic and the way to cross the screen.” Claudia Cardinale

 

“I found him quite similar to the roles he played. There was that easy, loping gait when he walked. But he had so much that happened in his life, there must have been turmoil going on underneath.” Betsy Palmer

  

“Olivier had to have a false nose to hide behind. Lee Cobb needed wigs and cigars. Hank used himself. He needed no disguises to reveal these different facets

of himself. There is a kind of bravery in that. His performances are very naked. Whatever it was he was hiding, it sure wasn't during performances.” Sidney Lumet

 

“Shirlee [his fifth and last wife] was wonderful for him. Hank obviously was a man who didn't like living alone and he said to me, "I really lucked out to have such a great woman." People used to say to me, "How come when you were single and he was single, you never got together?" I don't think it ever occurred to either one of us to be anything but great friends. Funny, isn't it? I don't know. Another mistake in my life.” Lauren Bacall

 

 

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The category: Best actor. The favorite: Henry Fonda, The Grapes of Wrath. The Winner: James Stewart, The Philadelphia Story

What happened: Much as I love Jimmy, his win this year was the most transparent consolation prize ever doled out. It’s hard to blame the Academy for regretting their mistake the year before, but Fonda’s 41 year delay , himself cheated for Grapes, shows just how fickle the tit-for-tat process can be.

 

From: The Envelope Please by Arnold Wayne Jones

 

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Peter Fonda in a Chat Interview

Was it Hard directing your father?

 

Not at all. He was an extraordinary actor. I acted in the film with him. The neat part was acting with him. He said "I dont know why you do that, son, I dont know why you give yourself that kind of trouble." But for me there was no trouble. After we finished his scene, he wrote me a letter saying that in his 41 years of making motion pictures, he had never seen a crew so devoted to their director, nor a director so devoted to his crew. "You are a very good director, son, and I love you very much. You dad." He had never used those words with me before. I passed that letter around the company. For without the company, the letter would never have been written.

 

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(Katherine Hepburn talking about her experiences doing “On Golden Pond”)

The house I lived in was in the most commanding location and often I would see Henry Fonda take his evening stroll along the base of my property--and I’d wonder what he was thinking about. He was a good painter. I never saw him go in his bathing suit--always just walking solemnly along. Fully dressed—not hurrying—not going slowly—and a thousand miles away. He was an oddie. I never felt that I knew him at all. He wasn’t given to a lot of talk and neither was I.

 

I had given hank Spencer’s old hat at the beginning of the movie. He was a big fan of Spencer’s and I thought it would make him happy. Later, at the end of the picture, he gave me a painting of three hats, with Spencer’s in the middle. It was charming and I was touched that he had gone to such an effort. Then I found that the picture made me sad—with Spencer gone and Hank gone. So I gave it to Ernest Thompson, who had written On Golden Pond. It was his first big success.

 

It was a very good study of the relationship of a husband and wife who just really liked each other. Hank and I were the right age—we were old—so we weren’t busy acting old. It comes upon one unexpectedly. Suddenly you lose your spring. Your spring in the sense of elasticity. Now—old—you don’t spring up from a chair. You get up. It is a very different act. Henry had lost a little more spring than I had when we were doing the picture and we slid very easily into our relationship. He was wonderful to play with—very true—very natural. He moved me deeply in the scene when he was beginning to crumble. It really wasn’t acting at all. I’m thrilled that he got the award. I think it pleased him very much. He gave some wonderful performances in his career.

 

From: Me Stories of My Life by Katharine Hepburn     

 

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On Golden Pond

 

Hepburn’s 12^th Best actress nomination and 4^th win—and, as with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, mostly for sentimental reasons. You hardly mind, though. This multigenerational drama about an aging couple facing down death and a grown daughter (Jane Fonda) during a summer on the lake overcomes its greeting-card script whenever Hepburn and Henry Fonda (who also won an Oscar) look at each other with hard won love and respect. So familiar are these legends by now that they seem like our own parents, and that makes the film doubly touching.

 

From: Entertainment Weekly Magazine, Katharine Hepburn Tribute Issue # 718 (July 11, 2003)

 

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“I know Henry Fonda as an actor. A devoted, hardworking, responsible one, with a harsh urge towards perfection. Not long ago a friend loan me a 16 mm print of the film “The Grapes of Wrath” made over 20 years ago. I was greatly reluctant to look at it, times passed, we changed the urgency departs and that’s what we call dating. But a lean, stringy, dark faced piece of electricity walked out on the screen, and he had me. I believe my own story again. It was fresh and happening and good. Hank can do that, he carries with him an excitement that cannot be learned.”

 

By: John Steinbeck, Author of “The Grapes of Wrath”

 

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AFI Salute to Henry Fonda

 

“Each year of his career, Henry Fonda’s work has matured. No higher compliment could be paid me than that my work continues to mature. Hank I’m sure that you agree. Hank, you have proven yourself a winner that way also. My heartfelt congratulations to you. It could not happen to a more deserving person. You’re beautiful. I love you, I’ll always will.” Bette Davis

 

 

“I don’t think anybody ever caught Hank Fonda in the act of acting. I don’t think that anybody has ever put more effort into giving an effortless performance. And I know that nobody has ever been able to achieved even occasionally what he has been doing for his entire career. And that’s the most difficult thing I think for any artist in any medium to do: to be simple, clean, and simple. He is the definitive American actor and there is nobody that makes me personally more proud to be a member of the same profession.” Jack Lemmon

 

 

“Hank had been out here for all two, three years, and John Ford decided to make him a cowboy. And of course that entails a horse. And I was a little worried and I ask hank about it and he just shrugged. And then when I saw the picture Hank rode out in his first Western like he’d been riding the horse all his life. You believed him.” Jimmy Stewart

 

 

“… I grew up believing that the most romantic and wonderful place that existed was the theater. And that Henry Fonda was its paragon. I still believe both. Whenever and wherever he appears in a play the house is packed. His art begins in rehearsal however where he works from moment to moment never deviating from a basic truthfulness and sense of integrity. It’s always exhilarating acting with Henry and curiously it’s always comforting. A very public experience but at the same time a very private one. Because looking at those bottomless blue eyes makes being with the stage with Henry Fonda the safest place in the world. He gives his fellow actors support, confidence, and comfort. In the presence of a majesty, he’s not even aware that he has.” Jane Alexander

 

 

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AFI commentaries regarding Henry Fonda being chosen #6 Screen Legend

 

“Henry Fonda was so adept at that romantic comedy—and physical comedy as well” Bridget Fonda

 

“He had the personification of the public’s eye of the American male: quiet, courageous, capable, sensitive.” Rod Steiger

 

“He has a beautiful, subtle, wonderful, kind of righteous quality. He stands up for truth. And that’s why people couldn’t handle it when he wanted to be a bad guy.” Jim Carrey

 

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“There’s something very noble, and quite wonderful about the process of acting. That craft, in rare instances if an actor is very, very good. He has a chance, a few times in his life maybe to do something that nobody else can ever do even once, maybe. You can touch people, and you can move them, and you can make them think, and you can make them realize something that they never would’ve though of they never would’ve realized if you had not been there and had done it. In other words you can enlighten them and I think that Mr. Fonda has done that for decades. And I don’t know any man that makes me more proud to be a member of that profession”

 

By: Jack Lemmon at the Golden Globe Awards

 

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