Henry Fonda

May 16, 1905, Grand Island, Nebraska – August 12, 1982, Los Angeles

Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades.

Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins. He made his Hollywood debut in 1935, and his career gained momentum after his Academy Award nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, (1940).

Grapes of Wrath Tom Joad’s I’ll Be There Speech

Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts and 12 Angry Men.

Mister Roberts (1955) – You Stabbed Me in the Back Scene

Later, Fonda moved both toward darker epics as Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West and lighter roles in family comedies like Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for the movie On Golden Pond.

More on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fonda

TCM Tribute to Henry Fonda

#todaysmemory