Actor and humanitarian Jane Fonda is adding the SAG life achievement award to her many accolades. The 86-year-old will be given the prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February, the guild said Thursday.
Fonda said in a statement that she was “deeply honored and humbled” that she was chosen.
“I have been working in this industry for almost the entirety of my life and there’s no honor like the one bestowed on you by your peers,” Fonda said.
In her over six decades in the business, Fonda has won two Oscars — for “Klute” and “Coming Home" — two BAFTA Awards, an Emmy and seven Golden Globes. With an activist spirit spanning back to her antiwar protests in the 1960s and 70s, she’s also used her platform to advocate for gender equality, civil rights and environmental issues. Last year, Fonda spent her 85th birthday raising $1 million for a non-profit in Georgia aimed at educating school-aged children to make healthy life decisions.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher called Fonda a “trailblazer.”
“We honor Jane not only for her artistic brilliance but for the profound legacy of activism and empowerment she has created,” Drescher said.
Fonda was born Dec. 21, 1937, in New York City, the first child of the late actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, who died by suicide at 42 when Jane was 12. Her brother, Peter, the Oscar-nominated actor and screenwriter, died in 2019. Fonda reflects on her extraordinary life, family, career, relationships and activism in the 2018 multipart documentary “Jane Fonda in Five Acts,” which is streaming on MAX.
SAG Life Achievement Award recipients are nominated and voted on by a SAG-AFTRA committee, intended to honor an actor who represents the “finest ideals” of the profession.
The 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will stream live on Netflix on Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. ET.
Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press
