In her 84 years, Jane Fonda has been there, done that. Two Academy Awards? Check. An Emmy? Obviously. Golden Globes? She has eight.
Here’s one accomplishment you may not have seen coming: As Glamour’s May 2022 cover star (no, that’s not the surprising part) Fonda was photographed against the backdrop of her very first Glamour cover ever—originally published in July, 1959.
More than 60 years later, Jane has absolutely still got it.
Then a working model, Fonda recalls that she wasn’t famous when German photographer Karen Radkai shot her closeup. “In those days, magazines just put models on the cover and I was a model,” she tells Yara Shahidi, the actor and activist who interviewed Fonda for Glamour’s May cover story.
In 1959, Fonda was 22-years-old and just about to make her acting debut on Broadway, followed shortly by roles on the silver screen. But it wasn’t until nearly 10 years later, in 1968, that she became a household name with Barbarella.
Reflecting on her younger self, Fonda recalls, “If somebody had told me that, at almost 85 years old, I’d still be working as much as I am and feeling as good as I do, I wouldn’t have believed them.”
“At that time in my life, I doubted I would live past 30,” she adds. Openness and a desire to learn, though, helped her find her purpose in acting, activism, and philanthropy. “If you stay curious, you will also stay young for a long time,” she says. “I’m younger now than I was when I was 20.”
“I didn’t give up,” notes Fonda. “I kept going. I tried to get better. I did.”
