Product Description

From Chapter Eighteen: On Golden Pond...
From the moment I arrived in New Hampshire, I began taking backflip lessons from the University of Maine's swimming coach, who summered near Squam Lake. I started with a belt around my waist, hooked up to a rope that assisted me in the flip, with a mattress to cushion the fall. After a week or so I graduated to the coach's diving board, and Troy would sit poolside and watch his mother's pathetic attempts to get herself all the way around, which generally ended with me landing on my back. I was terrified, always on the verge of tossing in the towel. After a month of this I moved to the float, the one in the movie, in front of the house, out in Squam Lake. It was the beginning of July, and I had less than a month to get it right. Every day when I wasn't needed on the set I would be out there, diving backward, over and over again, my body slapping against the water as I failed to make it around. Then one day about three weeks into this ordeal on the lake, I finally got it right!
. Nothing to write home about, but I had managed to flip far enough over to have time to straighten my legs and enter the water headfirst. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do it again, but at least I'd done it once. As I crawled, battered and bruised, onto the shore, out of the nearby bushes appeared Ms. Hepburn. She must have been hiding there, watching me practice. She walked over to where I was standing and said in her shaky, nasal, God-is-a-New-Englander voice, `Don't you feel good?' `Terrific,' I answered. And it was true. `You've taught me to respect you, Jane. You faced your fear. Everyone should know that feeling of overcoming fear and mastering something. People who aren't taught that become soggy.' Thank you, Lord! I'd been redeemed. God knows the last thing in the world I wanted to be was soggy, certainly not in the eyes of Ms. Hepburn, a living testament to nonsogginess. It was odd. In the film the backflip was to prove myself to my father. In real life I had proved myself to Ms. Hepburn. Dad probably couldn't have cared less if I'd done the dive myself or used a stunt double. We finally shot the diving scene in the third week of July. I managed a fairly good dive and was relieved to have it out of the way. Wrong, wrong, wrong, as Ms. Hepburn would say. A few days later we learned that the footage of the scene had somehow been damaged in the lab and I would have to do it all again. As though that weren't bad enough, when we finally got around to reshooting, it was mid-September and the water was numbingly cold. I will never forget having to walk out on the diving board, all wet and shivering, while the crew sat in the camera boat in their down parkas. I was out of practice and too cold to execute the dive as well as I had the first time. When I came to the surface and said, `I did it! It was lousy, but at least I did it,' those were my own words, spontaneous and totally true.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12609 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Sunday Telegraph
"Remarkably frank autobiography."

Evening Standard
"Jane Fonda's biog...still leaves you wanting more."

Lord Puttnam
"This book redefines autobiography. It's not just an autobiography. It's a journey."

Customer Reviews

My Life So Far
This was bought for me as a present and I was surprised just how much I actually enjoyed it. Her writing style is very clear and she is extremely candid in telling her life story. I didn't realise how varied and interesting her life had been, from her childhood with her actor father, her own acting career, war activism and fitness business. She comes across as a very grounded person and has a good story to tell. Worth a read.

Inspirational
I was interested in reading Jane Fonda's autobiography after watching her on a talk show. She was already a star when I was born, but I remember watching her movies as Coming HOme,On Golden Pound or China Sindrome on tv and I knew she was a political activist during the Vietnam war. I was taken aback with the frankeness and honesty on her report of all childhood problems, love relationships, and her fight with bulimia, drugs and drink throughout her life. From the book you can understand the radical changes she's taken in her life.Even so, it amazes me how she dedicated so much of her time and money for the causes she believed in. It is a very inspirational book,made me think about several things. And I think that it was her goal, by telling so openly how she overcame her inner issues and problems, to make people think about themselves. I strongly recommend the book also for the insight on the movie industry and American history for the past 30 years or so...

Great Read!
I seriously cannot believe the above negative reviews. How can anyone say this book lacks depth and Jane Fonda only talks about herself is beyond me!

Jane Fonda is a superb writer and has really written about her life in great detail. She is a fascinating woman with varied unexpected facets to her life. This book makes an interesting read and most of all gets you thinking. Unlike most other biographies currently on the market, it doesn't just list sordid details to make the author money, but really shows what biographies should be like.