Jane Fonda's Activism Drew The Ire Of Nixon

my first guest tonight is a two-time Oscar winner and activist and a cultural icon she's now the subject of the new documentary Jane Fonda in five acts I was aware that I was being followed and there was very little attempt to disguise it there'd be these guys in trench coats with dark glasses the FBI would follow but except in school the more I saw them the more my attitude was you think I'm gonna back down I mean that's one thing you know every time people think they're gonna scare me then tha

t's the wrong way to approach it because no [Music] please welcome back to the Late Show Jane Fonda [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for you I like your beard wait a second I want you say against my wife can hear yeah I was gonna ask what she said I like the beard my wife does not like my beard but I think it gives me a secondary male sex characteristics I really don't have he does give my face a little heft yeah thanks very much very good thank you yeah don't let it get longer t

hough don't go Letterman oh all right I'll wait till I retire I'll wait till I retire then I'll go biblical prophet no the document the clip we just saw Jane Fonda in five acts premiered last week it's the story of your life what is that like to sit in a room while other people see this intimate portrait of your life some of which I assume must have come some surprise to you well I've written my memoir you know I talked about a lot of the things but it's different when you actually don't see it

on the screen and you know it's I didn't have anything to do with how what was edited or anything like that I just Susan Lacey the director knew what questions to ask and she knew how to organize the material and it's scary to watch it cuz it's not all flattering is there anything that surprised you about your own life well Susan Lacey is you know she created American masters for PBS and did such great work and then she moved to HBO and she's really talented and she got footage that I had never

seen you know home you know hard 500 home movies archival stuff well your dad must have had a lot of home movies because he was a spokesman for GAF super 8 movies it was for the people at home who don't you see the thing and maybe audiences will relate people who saw on Golden Pond that they kind of know who he is cuz he was kind of like Norman Thayer you know he didn't he was kind of like yeah okay uh-huh you didn't talk a lot it's a little but he loved cameras because they gave him a chance to

hide behind a camera you didn't have to talk to people at a party cuz you were always taking pictures do you know people like you know people like that right and so he took a lot of home movies but some of the things aren't even from home movies I don't know where she got them it was it was really interesting to watch but it's also really scary I understand you heard Nixon talking about you for the first time what did he say about you the very first line in the movie is his voice saying what's

the matter with Jane Fonda Wow which i think is a perfect way to begin the show what is the matter with Jane Fonda well it's I've gotten I don't know I I don't know let's move on to another look at those bees and you say I don't say your father liked to hide interesting let's follow that feeling all right now you tweeted this out the other day I I sure never did expect to see my mug shot on Times Square there you are right there what were you the lighting was so good I mean who knew yes and you

held your fist up in your mug shot right very nice never keep that in everybody doesn't do that it depends on what you're being arrested for right well what were you being arrested for back in the day Nixon set me up I was traveling from Canada and I had a suitcase filled with vitamin pills and little envelopes and they busted me for drug trafficking and now wait a second did you put those those vitamin pills in the envelopes to make it look like there were drugs to get them back or were you rea

lly just smuggling vitamins in I was on a speaking tour I had vitamins what do you want I had you know in red nail polish I'd put on one little thing it would be B for breakfast and L for lunch and D for dinner I was really out there in those days and the arresting officer said to me I'm working on orders from the White House you should know this Wow and that's gonna fly and their words the headline the swanda smuggling drugs and then you know they sent them all to a lab in Chicago and it turned

out they were vitamins and there was like this much you know oh sorry it wasn't drugs it was vitamins that's just a little part of what goes on with activists well how did it feel to know that the president uh knighted States was was targeting you personally it didn't feel good he had better things he should have been focusing on as when they when they you know he he wanted to figure out how they could get me for treason mm-hmm and so he assigned to the Justice Department to find him way and th

ey ended up the investigators ended up coming back to him and saying you know she didn't commit trees and all she did was make the soldiers think you should focus on somebody who's really a danger so I felt pretty good I was exonerated and the ACLU took my case and sued and and we were right and we won what one section of the film focuses on your activism against the word Vietnam have what we've learned about that war in the decades since changed your attitude toward that war or change your atti

tude about what you did at the time no I have from the moment that I did the bad thing I did which was I sat on an anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam I wasn't even thinking what I was doing and and photographs were taken and that image went out and the image makes it look like I was against our soldiers which was never the case I had been working with soldiers prior to that and four years after that it's why I made the movie coming home but that image is there and I will go to my grave regrettin

g that and I knew right away that that was that was that was wrong but I I had really studied the war I knew a lot I learned from soldiers about what was going on so I'm I don't regret going to North Vietnam I learned a lot while I was there according you know in the documentary my second husband who I really missed Tom Hayden he you know he says the bombing of the dykes of North Vietnam stopped because Jane Fonda went there and exposed it and and I'm proud of that because I think it saved a lot

of life some people a lot of people yeah people got to know he who as the Jane Fonda original workout people were sort of surprised when they saw this because they knew sort of the activist Jane Fonda the very socially conscious actress and then suddenly this what was what what what actually was going on here well I I might Tom Hayden my second husband and I had started a an organization in California it was a statewide organization called the campaign for economic democracy California's huge i

t took a lot of money to have this organization which did absolutely great things and it was during a recession and I had to figure out I got to start a business that can make money for the organization and it was the workout and all the money from the workout went to camp all the rest was to raise money yeah for the campaign for economic democracy you must have raised some serious coin yeah you're still you're still in still work you still an activist you still work to make the world a better p

lace as you see it what what are the causes that are weighing heaviest on your mind right now everything I what I do you know when when the election happened in November 2016 you know like a lot of people I thought what can I do and I decided that I needed to put my focus on organizations that were on the ground in the middle of the country in those places where people have they've those union jobs that paid well and allowed them to have a piece of the American Pie disappeared and they are scare

d and angry and they're hurting and not people aren't paying enough attention to that so I decided that I wanted to throw myself in with organizations that were working on the ground I don't talk so much about candidates or parties but like in Michigan and I'm drag lily tomlin with me because she comes from Michigan and we go to Michigan to fight for one fair wage because you know that the federal mandate for restaurant workers is $2.13 you can't live on 2013 sets it all goes to taxes in Michiga

n I think it's three dollars and 28 cents or something so you're totally dependent on tips and the stuff they have to put up with is the worst sexual abuse of almost any industry and so lily and I have traveled on a number of occasions all through Michigan talking to people knocking on doors raising money for one fair wage to get that on the ballot thank you so much for being here lovely to see you again Jane Fonda in five acts [Applause] [Music] with Willie Nelson [Applause] [Music] you [Music]