“Why would they believe that I, a black girl, was Jane Fonda's daughter?” she says. But, from the age of 16, that's what Williams was, never formally adopted but as cherished and as loved as Fonda's biological children Vanessa (by first husband Roger Vadim) and Troy (by second husband Tom Hayden).
Fonda welcomed her second child Troy Garity in 1973 with her then-husband Tom Hayden, a famed anti-war activist who died in 2016. Fonda adopted her third child Mary Williams in the 1980s after Williams attended Laurel Springs Children's Camp, a summer camp for kids that was founded by Fonda and Hayden.
Mary Luana Williams (born October 13, 1967) is an American social activist and author who wrote The Lost Daughter: A Memoir about her life. The memoir details being adopted by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in her adolescence, as well as growing up as a daughter of Black Panthers before Fonda adopted her.
Today, Vanessa is a filmmaker who has directed projects like Jane Fonda in Five Acts. She is still an activist, standing with Fonda and many others at the U.S. Capitol in 2019 for the "Fire Drill Fridays" climate protests.
Although the couple divorced in 2001, Fonda continues to live in Atlanta and to raise money for the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP), an organization that she founded in 1995 with a grant from the Turner Foundation.
Oprah's Next Chapter: Meet Jane Fonda's "Lost" Daughter, Mary Williams
Who did Henry Fonda leave his estate to?
With the exception of a $200,000 bequest to daughter Amy, he left his entire estate to his 5th wife Shirlee Adams. 1982: Was unable to be present at the 1982 Academy Awards ceremony to accept his best actor Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981).
But then she was sent a prospectus about a property for sale in New Mexico called Forked Lightning Ranch. The 2,300-acre estate had a three-and-a-half-mile stretch of the Pecos River running through it. Fonda was knowledgeable about ranches—Turner owned more than a dozen—and she recognized that such a feature was rare.
Fonda's oldest child Vanessa Vadim, who was born in 1968, is her only child with her first husband, the late French filmmaker Roger Vadim. Fonda welcomed her second child Troy Garity in 1973 with her then-husband Tom Hayden, a famed anti-war activist who died in 2016.
Fonda, who has three children, 55-year-old Mary Williams, 54-year-old Vanessa Vadim, and a 49-year-old son Troy Garity, told the host, “I was not the kind of mother that I wished that I had been to my children. I have great, great children—talented, smart.
Jane Fonda's Adopted Daughter Reconnects with Her Birth Family. At 14, Mary Williams moved from the poverty-scathed streets of East Oakland to Jane Fonda's hacienda in Santa Monica. Decades later, Williams returns home to find out if blood really is thicker than water.
How old was Mary Williams when Jane Fonda adopted her?
When Troy Garity was 12 years old, his mother, Jane Fonda, welcomed 14-year-old Mary Williams into their home. Garity's newly adopted African-American sister seemed to fit in seamlessly -- and Garity says he never thought twice about Williams' race or place within the family.
Jane Fonda was married three times. Her ex-husbands are Roger Vadim (married from 1968 until 1973), Tom Hayden (married from 1973 until 1990) and Ted Turner (married from 1991 until 2001). Since her third divorce in 2001, Fonda has not walked down the aisle again.
The words Fonda used in his will concerning his decision not to leave any of his estate to his children Peter and Jane were: “My decision is not in any sense a measure of my deep affection for them.” He then noted that both children were financially independent, but his third child and current wife “are dependent on me ...
Although Jane and Peter Fonda, the actor's children by his second wife, Frances Brokaw, received nothing in the will filed Friday in Superior Court, the document said, ''My decision is not in any sense a measure of my deep affection for them.
Frances Ford Seymour Fonda (4 April 1908 – 14 April 1950) was a Canadian-American socialite. She was the second wife of actor Henry Fonda and the mother of actors Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.
If we're being honest, Fonda is a priceless national treasure. But if it's numbers you want, Jane Fonda's net worth is estimated to be $200 million. "I wake up every morning, grateful that I'm where I am and that I have the resources that I do," she told Parade.com in 2021.
Her father, an alcoholic, drowned at age 51 when he stumbled into a swimming pool at a sanitarium, according to Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman by Patricia Bosworth. Ann Clare Brokaw, her half-sister by her birth father, died in an auto accident at age 19.
Fonda was born by caesarean section on February 23, 1940 at LeRoy Hospital in New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour; his older sister is actress Jane Fonda. He and Jane had a half-sister, Frances de Villers Brokaw (1931–2008), from their mother's first marriage.
Jane Seymour Fonda was born in New York, New York, on December 21, 1937 to actor Henry Fonda (1905-1982) and socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw (1908-1950). She has one brother, Peter Fonda (1940- ).
Fonda was born in New York City in 1937, the daughter of Henry Fonda and Frances Seymour Fonda. She attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and Vassar College. In her late teens, Fonda studied with renowned acting coach Lee Strasberg and became a member of the Actors Studio in New York.
The remains of Frances Ford Seymour, the second wife of actor Henry Fonda and the mother of Jane and Peter Fonda, are interred in the Ogdensburg Cemetery in the Seymour family gravesite marked by a large obelisk. She died in 1950.
As she knew she'd miss it, she chose a property on 3.5 miles of the Pecos River and continued to fish. Though Fonda eventually sold the property in 2015 for a cool $19.5 million to an undisclosed buyer, it remains a gorgeous property that defines New Mexico's unique beauty.
Henry, best known for his roles in 1940's The Grapes of Wrath and 1957's 12 Angry Men, was described by PEOPLE in 1975 as "respected for his talent but widely disliked for his abrasive egotism and vanity," leading to sometimes difficult relationships with his children, Jane and her brother Peter Fonda.
