The tale of Fonda’s adopted daughter
|Published
Detail from the cover of The Lost Daughter. Detail from the cover of The Lost Daughter.
London - Throughout her various incarnations as an actress, activist and fitness guru, Jane Fonda has never been shy about spilling the beans.
Whether she was discussing her marriages (three of them), detailing her plastic surgeries (“I said to the surgeon: ‘Don’t get rid of my wrinkles. I don’t want to look foolish’”) or even talking about her sex life (“It’s important for everyone to know that people in their 70s can be sexually active... I mean, I am”), few things were left unsaid.
But when Mary Williams published her memoirs last month, there was one aspect of Fonda’s life that came as a surprise to just about everyone.
More than 30 years ago, Jane welcomed Mary, then a troubled teenager from a broken home, into her family and raised her as her adopted child. “Everyone in her circle knew about me and it wasn’t a question of keeping it secret,” says Mary. “She just didn’t broadcast the fact.”
Mary’s journey from the daughter of Black Panther members to the child of Hollywood royalty is detailed in her book, The Lost Daughter.
She describes growing up in a poverty-stricken and abusive household in Oakland, California, until a chance friendship with the Oscar-winning actress led to a life far beyond her dreams. Soon she was living in relative splendour in Fonda’s home in Santa Monica, California, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey and Sophia Loren.
“If Jane hadn’t come along, I don’t know what my life would have been like,” admits Mary. “I call my mother ‘Mama’ and Jane ‘Mom’ because Jane has been my mother for 30 years.” Now 45, Mary is bubbly and outgoing and talks candidly to me of her time growing up.
It was the late Seventies and she was just 11 when she met Jane Fonda at a summer camp set up by the actress and her second husband, politician Tom Hayden, for children of all backgrounds.
Jane was a supporter of the revolutionary organisation the Black Panthers. She knew Mary’s uncle, Landon Williams, and suggested some of his young family members attend the camp.
“It wasn’t just a place for underprivileged kids, but for wealthy, celebrity and middle-class kids, too,” says Mary. “Elliott Gould’s son was there and so was Angelina Jolie. She was about ten and those lips were there already and so too was the intelligence. She wasn’t a carefree, frivolous ten-year-old - she was a very smart girl and curious about the world.”
Mary’s first impressions of Jane - a huge name by this time thanks to movies such as Barbarella and Klute - were surprising.
“I thought she was going to be this fancy movie star, but when she came to the camp, her hair was all over the place and she had no make-up on.
“We really connected and she says that she just saw a light in me. At the time though, I was a little confused - I’d never had someone be so interested in me and my life before.”
Mary was the fifth of six children born to father Louis Randolph and her mother, also called Mary. She was just three when Louis was imprisoned for seven years after throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers during a high-speed chase, leaving Mary and her siblings to be raised alone by their mother.
Though Mary Snr worked hard to support her family, she was an abusive alcoholic. “I still have marks on my body from where she used to whip me,” says Mary.
At 14, while she was auditioning for a local play, Mary was raped by the theatre director.
When she returned to camp the following summer, Fonda found out about the rape. She organised for Mary to see a therapist, telling her that if she got her grades back up in school, she could stay with the Fonda family for as long as she needed. Mary’s mother agreed - and Mary never returned home.
Moving into Jane Fonda’s home wasn’t as overwhelming as Mary might have expected.
“She didn’t raise her kids like privileged, spoilt Hollywood children. Jane wasn’t working at the time, so she cooked and it was all quite domestic,” she says. Fonda’s house wasn’t “grand by Hollywood standards”, says Mary, although security was tight.
Fonda famously had been photographed in Vietnam sitting on an enemy anti-aircraft battery, which enraged many Americans and led to death threats - she has since apologised for her actions.
“She always needed a remote control to start the car from inside the house just in case there was a car bomb,” Mary recalls.
Otherwise, life was as normal as it could be for any blended family - in this case consisting of Jane, her then husband Tom Hayden, their son Troy, and Jane’s daughter Vanessa (by her first husband, director Roger Vadim). “I came along when Jane’s career was still good but she was easing out of it slightly, so I kind of got her at the perfect time and saw her as the perfect mom,” says Mary.
Though Jane grew up in Hollywood and Mary had lived in poverty, their childhoods were similar in one important regard - their parents were distant.
Jane’s father was the Oscar-winning actor Henry Fonda, and her mother the beautiful yet fragile Manhattan socialite Frances Seymour, who had committed suicide when Jane was just 12.
“Jane talked about her father as someone who liked the idea of a family yet found engaging with them beyond him,” says Mary. “She lost her mother at a young age so she felt her absence, too.
“She grew up with nannies and so kind of replicated that behaviour with Vanessa at first, but when Tom said that they would raise Troy without them, she really learned from that.
“She’s the sort of person who, if she feels she’s failing, she’ll study herself and really try to improve.”
To that end, Jane spent a lot of time bonding with Mary. They watched films, took bike rides and did aerobic classes together - Fonda having already caused a sensation with the hugely popular Jane Fonda Workout tapes.
“Well, she was a perfectionist with herself, but she never put that on me or said anything to me like: ‘You need to lose weight’,” Mary says.
“It did annoy her, though, to see me sitting watching TV and she always encouraged me to go out and do things.
“One time I visited her in Mexico City (where Fonda was filming Old Gringo with Gregory Peck) and she had a schedule drawn up for me so that I could explore the place.”
When Fonda went on to divorce Tom Hayden in 1989, Mary was stunned. “To me, when people were dissatisfied with their relationship, they fought and hit out,” she admits. “I didn’t understand this kind of break-up where there was such politeness and where they would still cook dinner and watch TV together.”
Within two years, Fonda had embarked on her third marriage, this time to CNN founder Ted Turner.
But while the couple had been “infatuated love birds” at the beginning of their relationship, after ten years the Fonda-Turner union was starting to dissolve.
Rumours arose of an affair (on Turner’s part) and Fonda’s embracing of Christianity - something she couldn’t discuss with her then atheist husband.
“I think part of it was that Mom felt she was losing herself,” says Mary, “and part of it was his issues in terms of really being committed.
“My mom and I talk about everything, but I didn’t want to know all the details about her break-up with Ted, even though I know she really wanted to share that with me.
“I loved them both and I didn’t want to hear about something bad he might have done!”
Mary herself has never married nor had children, but has travelled extensively, her work taking her to places as diverse as Tanzania (for a health and education agency) and Antarctica (for a US government research programme).
Her contact with her immediate family had been non-existent after she moved in with Fonda - none of them had been in touch with her afterwards.
Then one of her birth sisters, Deborah, who had been a crack addict from a young age, was killed in a street knifing.
When Mary returned to Oakland for the funeral, she couldn’t help thinking that her birth mother’s alcoholism and neglect of her children had led to Deborah’s downward spiral.
“I didn’t mourn my sister properly because I was so angry with Mama,” she admits. “But I directed it at the real mother figure in my life - Jane. I wouldn’t return her emails or calls for a couple of years - I was horrible to her.
“I profusely apologised to Mom afterwards and to her great credit she was always, always there for me.”
Mary has subsequently forged a connection of sorts with her birth mother and got her to meet Jane for the first time at a photoshoot for her book.
“Jane was so nervous,” says Mary. “I think she felt Mama was going to look at this white lady with jewellery who’s had work done and all this class guilt came to the fore.
“But they got along just fine and laughed together and talked about their different surgeries, so they found a common bond!”
Jane Fonda took Mary in at a time when she most needed care and affection. But to her daughter she gave her something much greater.
“I’d grown up thinking that you couldn’t get too close to people because they’d leave you or die or just let you down,” she says. “And I was ashamed to admit that I’d never loved anybody.
“When I went to work in Antarctica, I suddenly realised how much I missed my family. I knew I was healing. I knew I could love.” - Daily Mail
* The Lost Daughter by Mary Williams is out now, published by Blue Rider Press.