The stars turned out at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles Thursday night to toast two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda. She was presented with this year’s American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, an honor her legendary father was presented with as well.
Fonda sat at a table while Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, Sally Field and many others paid their respects to the actress, who has been making films for over six decades. Even members of her family got up to say a few words.
“In film, in fitness, in politics, in family, Mom, you have succeeded,” Troy Garity, her son, said, notes The Associated Press. Brother Peter Fonda added, “Nobody has dreamed bigger and nobody has worked harder than my sister, Jane.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Douglas, Fonda’s The China Syndrome co-star, presented her with the award.
“I learned that not only is Jane an amazing actress, but she is the world’s greatest multitasker,” Douglas recalled. “She was simultaneously an actress, she was a mom, she was a fitness expert and a brave, very courageous political activist. So, deep down, who really is Jane Fonda? She is one of a kind.”
Her The Newsroom co-star Jeff Daniels also got on stage to sing a song about “abs, buns and thighs.”
AFI Board of Trustees Howard Stringer started the evening off by recognizing Fonda’s long relationship with Hollywood. She attended the first AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony for John Ford in 1973. Her father, Henry Fonda, won the sixth award in 1978. Fonda also has two Oscars on her resume - for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978).
The ceremony will air on TNT on June 14 and later on Turner Classic Movies.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com