Jane Fonda

Born: 21 December 1937
Where: New York, USA

The double Oscar-winning actress - for Klute and Coming Home - has attracted attention as much for her activities on screen as off.

Known as Hanoi Jane for her anti-Vietnam War stance, she also won over another legion of fans with her series of aerobics videos.

The daughter of film legend Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, her mother's suicide was kept from her as a teenager.

She originally made her name for herself as a model before being prompted by Joshua Logan to appear on stage with her father.

In 1958, she joined the Lee Strasberg Acting Studio and made her big screen debut in the comedy Tall Story opposite Anthony Perkins.

Sticking to rom-coms, she went on to appear in Period of Adjustment, Sunday in New York, Any Wednesday and Barefoot in the Park.

She scored two early hits with the Western parody Cat Ballou in 1965 and future husband Roger Vadim's technicolour sci-fi yarn Barbarella.

It was at this time that she met political activist Tom Hayden (he next husband), who encouraged her anti-war activities leading to the label Hanoi Jane.

In 1967, she landed her first Oscar nomination for They Shoot Horses, Don't They and went on to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of a hooker in 1971's Klute.

The following year Fonda visited North Vietnam, politically recreating herself as the champion of Black Panthers and Native Americans.

(she later conceded publicity shots of her astride a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun was the "largest lapse of judgement I can imagine". )

Broadening her range, she played a wife turned bankrobber in Fun With Dick and Jane, a rancher in Comes A Horseman and an uptight divorcee in Neil Simon's California Suite.

Coming Home, the first feature from her production company IPC, offered powerful insight into the effect of the Vietnam War on people at home and won her a second Best Actress Oscar.

IPC later produced Oscar-nominated thriller,The China Syndrome, 9 to 5, and On Golden Pond, which saw her act on screen for the first and only time with her father.

She was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar and her father won the Academy Award for best actor.

In 1982, she revolutionised the fitness industry with the release of Jane Fonda's Workout - the top-selling video of all time and the first of 23 exercise tapes.

In 1985, she starred in Norman Jewison's Agnes of God and was again Oscar nominated for her role as a murder suspect in The Morning After.

She played a small-town teacher opposite Robert De Niro in Stanley & Iris and then all but abandoned her film career after marring media czar Ted Turner in 1991.

(the couple were divorced in 2001).

Fonda's time is now taken up with social concerns, including child welfare, and her role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN.

In 2004, she showed her political mettle is still there when she attacked the Mexican government over deaths of women on the Tex-Mex border.

The following year she starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in the romantic comedy Monster-in-Law.