 | ||
This is the filmography of American actor Henry Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982), including his performances between 1935 and 1981. Fonda appeared in more than 100 films, including TV movies.
From the beginning of Fonda's career in 1935 through to his last projects in 1981, Fonda appeared in 106 films, television programs, and shorts. Through the course of his career he appeared in many critically acclaimed films, including such classics as 12 Angry Men and The Ox-Bow Incident. His roles in 1940's The Grapes of Wrath and 1981's On Golden Pond earned him Academy Award nominations he won for the latter). Fonda made his mark in Westerns, appearing as Frank James in Jesse James and The Return of Frank James, and war films such as The Longest Day and In Harm's Way, and made frequent appearances in both television and foreign productions late in his career. He was Bette Davis' leading man in the romantic period piece Jezebel and portrayed historical figures Abraham Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln and Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine. He played a buffalo hunter in the Cinerama film How the West Was Won and his narration appeared in 1942 in an American documentary and propaganda film entitled The Battle of Midway. Fonda made three movies with his close friend James Stewart; On Our Merry Way, Firecreek, and The Cheyenne Social Club. Henry Fonda made no major film appearances between 1948's Fort Apache with John Wayne and Mister Roberts with James Cagney in 1955, seven years later, concentrating instead on the stage; both films were directed by John Ford.
In 1963, he made a trip to New Zealand and Australia to launch the movie How the West was Won. His trip took him via Tahiti and Fiji, and it was on the Tahiti-Fiji sector that he flew with Air New Zealand. He was studying navigation at the time, he informed the crew, and asked if he could visit the cockpit of the aircraft to observe the navigator in action. In those days, airliner flights of more than 200 miles over water were obliged to carry a professional navigator. On this flight the navigator was an Australian, James Mair, later Captain and International Air Accident Investigator, who showed Henry how to take sun-shots with the sextant, even allowing Henry a successful try at calculating their position over the Pacific. He left the aircraft at Nadi in Fiji, to take a Qantas flight to Sydney, Australia.