The French Fonda

Not until she was 20 did the lovely, leggy (5'8") daughter of Henry Fonda finally decide to follow in her talented father's footsteps. Why the delay? "When people asked me why I wasn't an actress," she recalls, "I would tell them if I couldn't be the best, I wouldn't be an actress." Following a brief stint at New York's Actors Studio, she made her debut on the boards in There Was a Little Girl and walked off with a Drama Critics Award, even though the play folded in its third week. Today, after five Broadway bows and several starring film assignments (including the title role in the award-winning Cat Ballou), Jane--already ranked as one of Hollywood's leading lovelies--is being converted into a Continental femme fatale by Roger Vadim, former husband and movie mentor of France's foremost cinematic sex symbol, Brigitte Bardot. Jane, married to Vadim shortly after their first filmic collaboration, in Circle of Love, will soon receive maximum exposure in his La Curée and make her own Bardot-like bid for international acclaim.