Eight decades after Hollywood legends like Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland made history by lending their high-wattage glamour to launch the Committee for the First Amendment in a daring stand against McCarthyism, Jane Fonda is resurrecting the organization at what she calls “the most fraught period of my lifetime.”
The younger Jane Fonda called for help from her Hollywood community in a letter shared with CNN in which she asked peers to sign up to be part of a relaunched committee, writing, “I’m 87 years old. I’ve covered war, repression, protest, and backlash. I’ve been venerated, and I’ve been vilified as an enemy of the state. But I can tell you this: This is the scariest moment of my life.”
“Whenever I get scared, I look to history,” Jane Fonda wrote. “I wish there was a secret playbook that told us the answers — but there never has been.” She added: “It’s about, kind of, rallying around each other and realizing the power in numbers too great to be ignored and standing up for one another.”
“And that’s why I feel the urgency to re-launch the Committee for the First Amendment — yes, the same Committee my father, Henry Fonda, was part of during a very dark era, and that many other artists formed in response to when people were losing their voices and even imprisoned because our work had become so powerful.”
More than 550 members of Hollywood have answered Jane Fonda’s fight, adding their names on to her recently relaunched committee as supporters including Aaron Sorkin, Barbra Streisand, Glenn Close, Gracie Abrams, JJ Abrams, John Legend Julia Louis-Dreyfus Julianne Moore Kerry Washington Larry David Lily Tomlin Natalie Portman Nikki Glaser Patti LuPone Pedro Pascal Quinta Brunson Rob Reiner Rosie O’Donnell Sean Penn Spike Lee Viola Davis Wanda Sykes Winona Ryder Whoopi Goldberg and more.
The First Amendment Defense Committee was originally established in 1947 in response to a time of great national uncertainty and tension during the McCarthy era, to protect all voices from Government activities or censorship. At the time, the committee came under fire for its perceived link to the Communist Party, against which many of its famous Hollywood witnesses railed.
Jane Fonda’s reboot of the committee follows the silencing of Jimmy Kimmel, who was booted off the air this month after President Donald Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr, called on him to be censored “for exploitation” of the murder suspect in a monologue.
Kimmel’s show has now resumed its episodes, but the controversy set off a days-long news cycle about free speech and companies giving in to political pressure. “The stakes are too high and silence is much too costly,” Jane Fonda wrote in her letter this week.
“They’re banking on our fear and our silence,” she said. “But our business — and artists from all over the world — have a long history of challenging the forces of censorship,” she continued, “and refusing to silently accept injustice in even the most difficult times.”
Fonda didn’t name government leaders in her letter, but a representative for the Committee for the First Amendment told Mid Breaker that Fonda was moved to reconstitute the committee because of “the onslaught of attacks on free speech from the current administration” and intends to put forth a “united front against government censorship, intimidation, and fear.”
“Free speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political persuasion — no matter how liberal or conservative you may be,” the committee said in its statement. “The power to criticize and question, protest and even mock those in power — this is the heart of what America has always intended to be.”
Who Is Jane Fonda?
American actress Jane Fonda was born on December 21, 1937, in New York City. The daughter of the storied screen actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour, she was steeped in both Hollywood and the classics first, but gave her first attention to art rather than acting.
Fonda, sometimes referred to as “Hanoi Jane” for her controversial anti-Vietnam War stance in the 1970s, begain her film career opposite Anthony Perkins in Tall Story (1960) is best known for roles in such films as Cat Ballou (1965) and Barbarella (1968), which marked her, according to her autobiography My Life So Far published by Random House so far, as a trailblazer among actresses of her generation.
Her strong performances won her two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978), making her the sixth woman to have won two Best Actress Oscars.
Outside of her acting work, Jane Fonda became an active advocate for social and political issues. She was an antiwar activist during the Vietnam War and drew admirers as well as critics. It was the 1980s, and she had revolutionized the fitness industry with her Jane Fonda’s Workout videos, a cultural phenomenon that inspired millions.
She later resumed her acting career with memorable roles in movies and television series such as Monster-in-Law (2005) and Grace and Frankie (2015–2022). A life-long feminist, climate activist, and human rights advocate, Fonda will leverage her global influence to promote change beyond Hollywood.
