Entertainment

Peter Fonda dead aged 79 after Easy Rider legend hit by lung cancer


Hollywood actor Peter Fonda has died at the age of 79 after suffering from lung cancer.

Fonda, who co-wrote, produced and starred in the classic 1969 road movie Easy Rider, died peacefully at his home in Los Angeles on Friday, his family said in a statement.

He was the son of Henry Fonda and younger brother of Jane Fonda.

The statement said: “It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that Peter Fonda has passed away.

Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda ride through the countryside in Easy Rider

 

“In one of the saddest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy.

“And, while we mourn the loss of this sweet and gracious man, we also wish for all to celebrate his indomitable spirit and love of life.

“In honour of Peter, please raise a glass to freedom.”

He died at 11.05am local time, according to his family, with the official cause given as respiratory failure due to lung cancer.

Fonda was a well known figure of the 1960s counterculture movement. He earned an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay for Easy Rider, which also starred Dennis Hopper.

He was nominated for the best actor Oscar for the 1997 drama Ulee’s Gold. Fonda won the Golden Globe for the film.

Fonda was born in New York to Hollywood star Henry and his socialite wife Frances Ford Seymour.

During the 1960s he was a member of the counterculture and met the Beatles at a home in Los Angeles. His conversations with John Lennon while on LSD inspired the song She Said She Said.

He and Hopper starred in Easy Rider as a pair of long-haired bikers driving through the south of the United States.

Following the massive success of Easy Rider, the first counterculture film to be a hit, Fonda was highly sought after in Hollywood.

He starred in and directed The Hired Hand in 1971, among others. However, none reached the heights of Easy Rider.

American actors Henry Fonda (centre), his son Peter Fonda and daughter Jane Fonda

 

In 1997 Fonda found another critically acclaimed role in Ulee’s Gold, which saw him in the title role as a Florida beekeeper fighting criminals threatening his family.

The actor had courted controversy in his final years. He was a fierce critic of Donald Trump and made headlines for comments he made about one of the president’s sons.

Reacting to US immigration policies which saw migrant children separated from their parents at the border, he tweeted “we should rip” Trump’s son “from his mother’s arms” and “put him in a cage with pedophiles”.

Peter Fonda attends a film premiere in 2018

Fonda’s daughter, Bridget Fonda, is also an actor.

Jane Fonda paid tribute to her brother. She said: “I am very sad. He was my sweet-hearted baby brother. The talker of the family.

“I have had beautiful alone time with him these last days. He went out laughing.”

Filmmaker Rob Reiner, director of movies including Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally… and A Few Good Men, said Fonda’s “spirit will be missed”.

He tweeted: “My heart goes out to Jane over the loss of her brother. Peter Fonda was a revolutionary filmmaker during a revolutionary time. Born in the house I now live in, his spirit will be missed.”

British actor Cary Elwes, best known for starring in 1987 comedy The Princess Bride and Netflix’s Stranger Things, praised Fonda’s work in independent film.

He said: “RIP PeterFonda. A legend not only on screen but for helping create the independent film industry. There will never be another like him. Our condolences to Bridget and his family.”

Comedian Kathy Griffin posted a thread to Twitter, recalling her first meeting with Fonda and calling him an “actor’s actor”.

She said he was not a “Hollywood phony” and would tell her to “keep doing my thing, ‘man’.”

Griffin added: “I loved it when he would call me ‘man’. I did! Every time I had the chance to run into him, he was the same guy. Not an ever-changing chameleon like so many Hollywood folks. Unbelievably giving and kind and comfortable.”

Carl Weathers, best known for portraying Apollo Creed in the Rocky franchise, tweeted: “Years ago. I had time, in front of cameras, with the legendary Peter Fonda. He was a gentleman, through and through. RIP, Legend!”

Oscar nominated actor Peter Fonda played a cool and introspective motorcyclist in the 1969 film “Easy Rider” that captured the spirit of the era’s counterculture movement.

Fonda was the son of Hollywood leading man Henry Fonda and the brother of Jane Fonda.

Fonda played the wanderer Wyatt in “Easy Rider,” opposite the late Dennis Hopper who co-starred as fellow biker Billy and directed the film.

In the movie, Wyatt and Billy set out on their motorbikes to discover America and have a number of misadventures, befriending an attorney played by Jack Nicholson, before meeting violent deaths.

“Easy Rider,” with a script co-written by Fonda, helped usher in a period known as the “New Hollywood” era of filmmaking, which often avoided happy endings and other conventions of the Hollywood studio system.

Fonda was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the script of “Easy Rider” and went on to act in movies and television shows at a steady pace in the decades after, achieving a second career highlight when he was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his role as a beekeeper in the 1997 drama “Ulee’s Gold.”

His other notable film appearances included supporting roles in the remake of the western “3:10 to Yuma” and the action-fantasy “Ghost Rider,” which both came out in 2007.

 

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay, the creator of Netflix drama When They See Us, shared a selfie of her and Fonda and said: “Rest In Peace, Kind Sir.”

Fonda, born in 1940 in New York City, lost his mother, the socialite Frances Ford Seymour, as a child when she took her own life.

Fonda later said in interviews he did not know his mother’s death had been due to suicide until years later. The late Henry Fonda, who during his life had five wives, had earlier told Seymour he wanted a divorce.

Growing up, Peter Fonda attended a number of boarding schools and suffered serious injury when he accidentally shot himself with a rifle at age 11.

He admired his father, the star of films such as “The Grapes of Wrath” and “12 Angry Men,” but would later describe him as emotionally distant, at least with his son.

Peter Fonda is survived by wife Margaret DeVogelaere and by his children with former wife Susan Brewer, Bridget and Justin Fonda. Both children have also worked in Hollywood.

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