Quendrith Johnson

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

What a gift when three of your favorite on-screen presences turn out to be three of your favorite off-screen presences; that’s what happened last night in Santa Barbara as the stunning Jane Fonda received the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film from The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). To set the scene, and this rarely happens, Jane Fonda and one of her star presenters Elizabeth Banks (“Pitch Perfect 2,” “Hunger Games” franchise) show up on the opposite end of the red carpet. In other words at the tail end, away from the first onslaught of shooters, broadcast and still photographers. With us print journalists. She literally materializes in the half-light in an olivine intricately patterned sophisticated one-piece Elie Saab jumpsuit that zips down the back, complete with Isadora Duncan style scarf. Light plays off highlights in her perfect feather-like coif, and there’s a regal bearing that pivots chins involuntarily. She seems… taller too. And nobody has to mention the words “Hollywood Royalty” because here she is, daughter of Henry Fonda (“The Grapes of Wrath,” “Twelve Angry Men”), brother of two-years-younger Peter Fonda, igniter of the counter-culture once with “Easy Rider.” 

This is Jane Fonda Now, not Jane Fonda 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, 10’s, but a 2015 stunner. On Dec. 21, she’ll add another year to 77, but right now the biggest takeaway is this: you don’t ever stop being a beautiful woman, there’s an agelessness to it. A 26-year veteran news reporter, who is solidly not in fashion, turns and mouthes “Find out who she’d wearing,” as if he’s lost the plot. Elizabeth Banks then decamps from an upscale golf cart at the chichi Bacara Resort, also on the far side of the carpet entrance, in a red-relief beaded backless floor length gown that, even topped by a high school-style ponytail, screams mogul-glamour. Banks power-strides to catch up with Fonda, and they round the step-and-repeat  (read: fancy word for logo backdrop) to the top end, the flash-bulb, keylight-driven shooter side. 

But that moment remains, that half-lit Movie Star entrance, and when Jane Fonda tells you on the red carpet “I only had one mentor, that was Katharine Hepburn on ‘Golden Pond,’” you just realize who has alighted into the pantheon of stars. Up there with Hepburn, Tracy, Bogart, Bacall… this one, tonight’s honoree Jane Seymour Fonda. Then you have to snap out of it and do your job. Later she will toss off “(Ted) Turner, my favorite ex-husband,” and then perennial Academy favorite Diane Lane (Trumbo, Unfaithful), sexy even in a handworked floral extravaganza grown-up dress, will just encapsulate this two-time Oscar winner in a way no one else can.

The SBIFF released a quick synopsis of the evening this morning with “After dinner, Hennessy’s Paradis Imperial cognac was distributed for a toast. Following the toast, Elizabeth Banks took the stage to thank Jane for her art, activism, and inspiration, calling her a "walking celebration of femininity and power".  Banks also cited that while she had watched a reel including all of Fonda's films, she was not embarrassed to say that 9 to 5, which she watched as a seven year old, was her favorite.  It made her dream of being a BOSS like Judy Bernly (from “9-to-5”). Diane Lane shortly followed to present the award to Jane. Saying she was here out of a sincere love for her, Diane thanked her for being the woman who has informed everyone's love with courage and honesty.” Yeah, well those are the details, but here is the part that will touch your soul, what really happened, last night on Jane Fonda’s star-charmed night, when even a 98-year-old Kirk Douglas appeared in video showing off the snow-white ponytail he grew to be “cool” for her. Spartacus even summed up his feelings with a letter in the tribute brochure that reads: “Dear Jane, I’m still waiting to make a picture with you. Love, Kirk Douglas.”

Festival Director Roger Durling, known for his signature black nail polish, wears a white orchid on a black tie jacket, takes the podium to introduce Banks, in a domino effect of introduction leading to the award presentation, he says “When all the big boys in Hollywood were trying to figure how how to make the next big blockbuster, Elizabeth Banks, starred in, produced and directed ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ to a worldwide box office of $285 million dollars, as someone already mentioned. He refers to my Tweet about her BO total, which came about on the red carpet in this funny exchange: “How do you feel about becoming a $200 million dollar director?” Banks leans forward with that high-wattage beyond white smile with comeback “That’s $285 million, Thank you.” Her forthrightness belies her incredibly delicate bone structure, and then she is up on the podium, as the show begins… 

ELIZABETH BANKS: “I have two sisters so it was “9-to-5” for me. Dabney Coleman tied up in a sex swing?! And then they just went total Feminist Agenda in the workplace. Day care center and equal pay? It’s been 30 years, but even as a seven-year-old I knew if I ever became a boss, that was the kind of workplace I was going to have, and I’ve kept my lawyers very busy. They were called secretaries back then and now they are called ‘Assistants,’ thanks to Jane Fonda… what a way to make living!”

There’s a brief pause before Diane Lane takes the stage, again Durling says a few stammering words about her own remarkable career, citing her upcoming work (Oscar-anticipated perhaps) in “Trumbo” with Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo, the once Black Listed screenwriter from the McCarthy Era “Red Scare” days.

On the red carpet, Diane Lane is exactly who she appears on screen, Your Best Friend for women and catnip for men. She’s so at ease, “Hey, what’s that called?,” she asks about a camera. “I have one of those.” Having interviewed two of her ex-husbands over the years, Christopher Lambert who played Tarzan in “Greystoke” and Josh Brolin lately of the tabloids, you’re just so glad to see those escapades bounce off. In other words, these marriages were under the heading of Diane Lane, neither leading man added or subtracted to her own legacy. When she takes the stage next, the room will just glow, because Lane is speaking passionately here, not just professionally on behalf of Jane.

DIANE LANE: “What a beautiful evening for a beautiful woman. I don’t know where to begin - like Jane, watching you tonight, (the film clip tribute reel) I know is very challenging because we just want another whack at it. So I don’t know here to begin, so I wrote a bunch of stuff… I’m here out of sincere love for Jane Fonda. So if I may inject some of this… Jane, you are both the candle and mirror that reflects it. It’s a such a blessing to be able to partake in honoring you tonight. It’s a chance to Thank You a bit for informing my life, our lives. The courage of your tremendous spirit and the fact that ‘Jane Fonda’ has deeply touched a few billion people doesn’t make it any less personal, sincerely.”

“My earliest memory of Jane Fonda is that fabulous scene from ‘Fun with Dick and Jane’ (with George Segal).  And when she sat on the can, I was thinking “I Love you!” She still has my 12-year-old heart. Because she brings a level of humanity and comes from here (gut). I started to feel a real kinship with her, other people were feeling it too, and I think it’s called ‘vibe-ing.’” 

“You just are elevated into another level of conversation. She stirs our soul, because we can feel her from the big screen, forging an intimacy with her characters, almost against her will. I feel that Jane’s tears, when I feel them come, come from a place of awe. Because each offering of herself comes to us from a place of awe, like she is getting to know herself. And it is awe.”

“Recently during a promotional tour for a movie, I was asked who Wonder Woman is to me… you can guess what my answer was: Jane Fonda. Hell, yeah. To me Jane is the most generous journeyman in her craft, but also in her life through her passionate activism. Jane, because (of) your sublime excellence in film. You keep on expanding the path for women in film. God Bless you for that!”

“Your gloriously strange life, and your God-given artistry, have clearly colluded to create genius. You are not a star, you are a fucking constellation. Your formidable empathy is your Superpower. Most people set their chart by you, your formidable empathy is your superpower. It is no wonder you are addicted to epiphanies.”

To much applause, the celebrant of the soiree Jane Fonda leans into the mic when she gets on stage, doesn’t actually get handed the ornate plaque (because it weighs about umpteen lbs.), and infuses the air with terms like “Social Justice” and call-to-action phrases like “don’t ever let them tell you we don’t have the technology” for clean energy, then talks about when she and ex-husband Tom Hayden had a ranch for underserved children nearby. “I’ve seen the power of art (film) to transform lives — I’ve seen it. I know it works.” Her speech is whip-short and moving, but a quote Roger Durling invokes from the late great Roger Ebert really nails the energy here:  “(Jane Fonda) has this kind of nervous intensity that keeps her so firmly locked into a film character. Perhaps it is that intensity that has led her to two Academy Awards.” Fonda will next be seen in "Youth," with Harvey Keitel, but her work from "The Dollmaker" to "Barefoot in the Park" to "Barbarella" to "Klute" to "China Syndrome" to "On Golden Pond" to "Peace Love & Misunderstanding" to her unexpected hit Netflix series "Grace & Frankie" with Lily Tomlin just echoes. "Youth" looks like a film turn to remember from the clip.

Well, that and the fact that she has a circle of some of the most amazing women in Hollywood around her, at her “slightly illegal” dance parties, as Banks let slip. Who is among them besides Lane and Banks? "These great dames, all these great dames," again Banks lets out, then “oh, Sandy Bullock, a bunch of others.”

Stay tuned to events in Santa Barbara as their film festival will roll in this Spring, and Kirk Douglas will be 99 in December, can you believe it?

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