Asked about the inappropriate behavior of which she has been the victim throughout her career on the show “Watch What Happens” Live, Jane Fonda drops the name of a famous French director without hesitation.
If there is indeed an American actress whose great career has largely been confused with a political commitment and militancy which has also earned her a great deal of criticism, especially during the Vietnam War, Jane Fonda has also largely worn his fight to defend the female cause, denouncing harassment and sexual assault in Hollywood spans. At 85, she remembers everything, like the first day.
Guest on the show Watch What Happens Live from host Andy Cohen, the two-time Oscar winner is asked about the inappropriate behavior she’s experienced throughout her career. Without hesitation on his part, his answer fuses and swings the name of a French director.
Well, [René Clément] wanted to sleep with me because the character I was playing had to have an orgasm in the movie and he needed to see what I was like [les miens]. He said it in French and I pretended not to understand”.
This is the film Les Félins, released in 1964, which Jane Fonda will shoot with Alain Delon. The actress was then 27 years old; the director 51. This is not the first time that she has mentioned this specific case.
In an interview on the CNN channel in 2017, she had mentioned this case of sexual harassment “on the very first French film I did. I refused [ses avances], but I still got the part. He was very nice after that.”
From the end of the 70s – beginning of 1980, she had testified to the weight of the injunctions imposed on women by Hollywood in Sois belle et tais-toi, a wonderful and fascinating documentary directed by the French actress Delphine Seyrig, released in March 1981 and resumed in theaters last February.