RIP Peter Fonda who produced, co-wrote and starred in ‘Easy Rider’ dies aged 79 includes music video’s
Wikipedia – By Staff – Friday August 16, 2019
Peter Henry Fonda was born on February 23, 1940 in New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda (1905–1982) and his wife Frances Ford Seymour (1908–1950); his sister was actress Jane Fonda (born 1937).[4][5] He and Jane had a maternal half-sister, Frances de Villers Brokaw (1931–2008), from their mother’s first marriage. Their mother committed suicide in a mental hospital when Peter, her youngest, was ten, although he did not discover the circumstances or location of her death until he was 15 years old.
On his eleventh birthday, he accidentally shot himself in the abdomen and nearly died. He went to Nainital and stayed for a few months for recovery.[6] Years later, he referred to this incident while with John Lennon and George Harrison while taking LSD.[7] He said, “I know what it’s like to be dead.” This inspired The Beatles’ song “She Said She Said”.[8]
Early on, Fonda studied acting in Omaha, Nebraska, his father’s home town. While attending the University of Nebraska Omaha, Fonda joined the Omaha Community Playhouse, where many actors (including his father and Marlon Brando) had begun their careers.[citation needed] Before he attended the University of Nebraska Omaha, Peter attended the Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts and was a member of the class of 1954. He then matriculated to Westminster School, a Connecticut boarding school in Simsbury where he graduated in 1958.[9]
Easy Rider
In 1968, Fonda produced, co-wrote and starred in Easy Rider, directed by Dennis Hopper. Easy Rider is about two long-haired bikers traveling through the southwest and southern United States where they encounter intolerance and violence. Fonda played “Captain America”, a charismatic, laconic man whose motorcycle jacket bore a large American flag across the back. Dennis Hopper played the garrulous “Billy”. Jack Nicholson played George Hanson, an alcoholic civil rights lawyer who rides along with them. Fonda co-wrote the screenplay with Terry Southern and Hopper.
Easy Rider (2/8) Movie CLIP – You Got a Helmet? (1969) HD
Fonda tried to raise finance from Roger Corman and AIP, with whom he had made The Wild Angels and The Trip but they were reluctant to finance a film directed by Hopper. They succeeded getting money from Columbia Pictures. Hopper filmed the cross-country road trip depicted almost entirely on location. Fonda had secured funding of around $360,000 (largely based on the fact he knew that it was the budget Roger Corman needed to make The Wild Angels).[21]
Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild (Easy Rider) (1969)
The guitarist and composer Robbie Robertson, of The Band, was so moved by an advance screening that he approached Fonda and tried to convince him to let him write a complete score, even though the film was nearly due for wide release. Fonda declined the offer, instead using Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”, Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” sung by the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn, and Robertson’s own composition “The Weight” performed by The Band, among many other tracks.
Don’t Bogart That Joint
Easy Rider – The Weight
The film was released in 1969 to international success. Jack Nicholson was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Fonda, Hopper and Southern were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film grossed over $40 million.[22]
ZZ Top – La Grange (Easy Rider)
Director
After the success of Easy Rider, both Hopper and Fonda were sought for film projects. Hopper made the drug-addled jungle epic The Last Movie (in which Fonda co-starred along with singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas).[2
Fonda directed and starred in the Western film, The Hired Hand (1971). Fonda took the lead role in a cast that also featured Warren Oates, Verna Bloom and Beat poet Michael McClure. The film received mixed reviews and failed commercially upon its initial release, but many years later in 2001 a fully restored version was shown at various film festivals gaining critical praise, and was re-released by the Sundance Channel on DVD that same year.
Fonda later directed the science fiction film Idaho Transfer (1973). Fonda did not appear in the film, and the film received mixed reviews upon its limited release. It has since become a cult classic with science fiction fans.
That same year he co-starred with Lindsay Wagner in Two People (1973) for director Robert Wise, where he played a Vietnam deserter.
Fonda later appeared in a series of films in the 1980s and After years of films of varying success, Fonda received high-profile critical recognition and universal praise for his performance in Ulee’s Gold (1997). He portrayed a stoic North Florida beekeeper who tries to save his son and granddaughter from a life of drug abuse. For his performance, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2007, Fonda made a notable return to the big screen as the bounty hunter Byron McElroy in the remake of the 1957 Western, 3:10 to Yuma. He appeared together with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. The film received two Academy Award nominations, and positive reviews from critics. He also appeared in the last scenes of the biker comedy Wild Hogs as Damien Blade, founder of the biker gang Del Fuegos and father of Jack, played by Ray Liotta. Fonda also portrayed Mephistopheles, one of two main villains in the 2007 film Ghost Rider. Although he wanted to play the character in the sequel, he was replaced by Ciarán Hinds.
He was in Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), Japan (2008), and The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll (2009).
In 2009, he appeared as ‘The Roman’, the main villain, in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, the sequel to the cult hit The Boondock Saints. Fonda also appeared in the TV series Californication.
Later career
Fonda’s later appearances include American Bandits: Frank and Jesse James (2010) for Fred Olen Ray; The Trouble with Bliss (2011); episodes of CSI: NY; Smitty (2012); Harodim (2012); As Cool as I Am (2013); Copperhead (2013); The Ultimate Life (2013); The Harvest (2013); HR (2014); House of Bodies (2014); Jesse James: Lawman (2015); The Runner (2015) with Nicolas Cage; The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017); The Most Hated Woman in America (2017); Borderland (2017); You Can’t Say No (2018); and Boundaries (2018) with Christopher Plummer. He was an executive producer of the documentary The Big Fix (2012).
Residence
Fonda had a permanent home in Paradise Valley, Montana since 1975.[34]
Politics
In 2011, Fonda and Tim Robbins produced The Big Fix, a documentary that examined the role of BP in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its effects on the Gulf of Mexico. At a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Fonda stated that he had written to President Barack Obama about the spill and attacked him as a “fucking traitor” for allowing “foreign boots on our soil telling our military—in this case the Coast Guard—what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do.'”[35]
Twitter controversy
In June 2018, Fonda went on Twitter to criticize President Donald Trump’s administration’s enforcement of U.S. immigration policy by Jeff Sessions, specifically regarding the separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border, writing that “We should rip Barron Trump from the arms of First Lady Melania Trump and put him in a cage with pedophiles.”[36] He also suggested that Americans should seek out names of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in order to protest outside of their homes and the schools of their children.[37] The Secret Service opened an investigation based on a report from the Trump family.[38] Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose daughter, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was also the object of Fonda’s tweets, believes that Fonda’s statement about Barron Trump is a violation of federal criminal law.[39] Fonda had also suggested “Maybe we should take her (Sanders) children away…”[40]
It was also reported by Politico that Fonda “has been railing against the White House for days”. In another now-deleted tweet, Fonda targeted United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen by calling her an uncouth name and calling for Nielsen to be “put her in a cage and poked at by passersby …”[41]
Fonda stated that he deleted his tweet regarding Barron Trump, saying that he “immediately regretted it and sincerely apologize to the family for what I said and any hurt my words have caused.”[42][43] Popular backlash to Fonda’s tweets resulted in a call for a boycott of his newest film at the time, Boundaries, and other Sony projects.[44][45] Sony Pictures released Boundaries as planned on June 22, 2018,[46] but completely condemned the comments made by Fonda.[47]
Death
Fonda died on August 16, 2019, at his home in Los Angeles, from respiratory failure caused by lung cancer.[48]
Video source: www.youtube.com
Posted by Teri Perticone
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