JANE
FONDA

In 1970, Jane Fonda was arrested at the Cleveland airport for drug trafficking after police found several bags of pills, which she said were just vitamins. The officer arresting her told her he was acting on direct orders from the Nixon White House, and Fonda believed she was targeted because of the anti-Vietnam speeches she’d been giving on college campuses. The purpose of these speeches was “to prove what soldiers and many of us in the anti-war movement already knew: The My Lai massacre, while greater in numbers of people killed at one time, was not an isolated incident, but part and parcel of the U.S.’s war strategy. She used her celebrity to bring attention to the cause, donating all her speaking fees to the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War. She was returning from Canada after giving her first speech there when she was arrested. Lab tests confirmed the pills were vitamins, and the charges were dropped. Her arrest and mugshot, in which she had the haircut from Klute, for which she won her first Oscar, brought even more attention to her anti-war activism.

 

Forty-nine years later, Fonda was arrested again, this time for protesting inaction on climate change in front of the U.S. Capitol with the group Oil Change International. She was inspired to protest by Greta Thunberg and encouraged other older people to protest, although she said it was hard for her to get into the car with her hands cuffed behind her back. As she was arrested, fellow protesters called out, “Thanks, Jane!” She said, “You do tend to get braver when you're older. Well, women do. What the hell do we have to lose?” She spent her 82nd birthday in jail.

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