tv Piers Morgan Tonight CNN December 9, 2011 12:00am-1:00am EST
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the dream is about to become a reality so it is enormously exciting. >> that was sir richard branson. thanks so much, as always, for watching our show. and richard branson, by the way, today is the day that his book came out. it's called, i think we've got the animation, "screw business as usual" by richard branson. thanks so much for watching. anderson cooper 360 starts now. tonight a hollywood icon in her own words. >> i'm my father's daughter in the sense that i do believe strongly in things. >> the unique and remarkable jane fonda on her politics -- >> we're going to have to stop trying to be objective and start telling the truth an it has to start with the media. >> her extraordinary life and loves. how many times do you think you've properly been in love in your life? >> oh, maybe five times. that's a lot. >> her outstanding film career from sex symbol to oscar winner. her workout empire. >> do you work out? >> i try. you know, i sort of -- it's what
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i call a british workout where you do it so you can carry on eating and drinking. and what she says about her life now. >> i've never been happier, frankly, and that's the truth. i'm not be coy. >> jane fonda for a remarkable hour. this is "piers morgan tonight." if i could talk to just one hollywood star, that star very probably would be jane fonda. the stories this woman can tell, in fact does tell from her beginnings in one of the first families of movies to her ground-breaking roles in politics, her multimillion dollar businesses, even her life. jane fonda's latest book is "primetime" and he's here with me now. jane, welcome. >> thank you very much. i'm glad to be with you. >> when you look at this extraordinary life that you've led, when do you think your primetime was? >> i think it started at about 62 when i became single for the third time. and it's continued. i can honestly say that i've never been happier, but i've worked hard for it.
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>> i read a recent interview you did and you suggested that despite all these amazing men that you had relationships with, you actually never felt proper intimacy, which i found was an extraordinary thing to say. what did you mean by that? >> well, to really bring all of yourself, including the not always very attractive and perhaps not loveable parts of yourself to the table in a relationship, makes you very, very vulnerable. and if you have addictions of any kind or suffer from depression or things like that, it's very hard to do it. and, you know, in my first marriages, i think that i chose men -- i agree with katharine hepburn, it's the women who choose the men. i chose men who, like me, really weren't able to show up 100%. it took me a long time to get
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over that and to be open to a relationship that was intimate. i'm not talking about sex, i mean soulful, emotional, psychological intimacy. >> and how much of that was done to you with the husbands you've had and how much was done to them or was it both? >> well, it was definitely me. i mean i sometimes wonder did i man cross my path who could have really showed up 100%? who knows. but if he did, i wouldn't -- i would have run the other direction, you know. it's like if you're -- if you grow up surrounded by chaos and someone is offering peace and calm, you're going to be terrified. so, you know, it took -- i had to grow out of that and it took me -- i'm a late starter. >> what have you learned about yourself? >> that i'm resilient, that i'm brave, that i'm honest.
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and i guess the most important thing that i continue to be curious. i feel like i learn something every day. i think that it's one of the things that keeps us young and interesting is remaining interested in life, in people, in learning things. and, you know, i was a college dropout. i'm a great student now. i study. one of the reasons that i love writing books is because it forces me to study, and i do. i'm just very involved in life and very happy. >> you've always been very active politically, and everyone knows you for that. what do you make of what's going on with politics in america at the moment? >> i am -- i'm scared, i'm scared. anybody who's been to a third world country where there's no middle class, you know, where there's a very narrow layer of people who are very rich and powerful and privileged and then everyone else is kind of
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struggling, barely making it, not able to have what they have dreamed of, that's a country that's not stable, and i hate to think that this wonderful country of ours is not going to be able to be stable. but we're headed in that direction. and i -- we still have time. i hope we can turn it around. but we've got to do something about the greed in high places, i think. >> why has america got itself into this awful position economically, because it was the great superpower of the world and remains so statistically, if no other way. but there's clearly something fundamentally wrong with the soul of america and everyone is debating this. you've been at the forefront of american politics and society for a long, long time. when you look at it, what do you think went wrong? >> i can't answer the question. i have not been in the forefront of politics. i came to politics, you know, in my 30s and i -- my politics are around issues. and the issues that i understand
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are not economic. you know, i work with young people, i work with adolescents, i work on issues of violence against women. it would be -- it would be clumsy for me right now to try to give my opinion about what went wrong in this country economically. you know, one thing that comes to mind is you can't wage a war for as long as we did in iraq and not tax it. we're paying for it without taxing it, so that people would swallow that bitter pill. that was one thing that was -- you know, that went wrong and that really messed up the economy. but i have a hard time understanding the economic situation. i try. i look at wonderful documentaries like "too big to fail" and things like that. i find it very confusing and disturbing. all i know is that when you have soldiers coming back from war,
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when you have people graduating with high degrees and none of them can find jobs in a country that promises that if you play by the rules, that you're going to be able to own a house and send your children to college and do okay, this is -- this is going to cause real deep problems in our country. you know, we're going to have to stop trying to be objective and start telling the truth, and it has to start with the media, in my opinion. >> are you blaming me there, jane? >> i don't know you well enough. i might. the media in general, though. >> how do you feel the media has been complicit? >> i think it's been quite complicit. you know, i think, you know, there's such an effort to be objective rather than really looking at underlying truths and telling them even if it might affect the ratings.
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everyone is worried about the short term. you know, if only, only, only we could become a country where people who influence our consciousness and influence our politics and the politicians themselves stop thinking short term and began thinking long term, i wish that we had those kind of human beings in office and there are some, but not enough. we need more long-term thinkers. >> when you look at the republican race and you see these debates with all the candidates and so on, what do you make of the intellectual level of those debates? who impresses you and who scares you? >> they all scare me, frankly. i get depressed and scared when i look at the republican debates. >> even someone like newt gingrich or mitt romney, do they scare you? >> i'm worried about anybody
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getting elected to office who says we have to do away with or privatize social security, we have to reduce medical -- health insurance, we have to not raise taxes. i don't think that we can get out of the -- and, oh, there's no problem with the environment, you know. this is all made up by the left. the scientists don't really know what they're talking about. this worries me. this is an example -- especially i'm thinking about the environment now, of people not -- people becoming ideological rather than understanding there are some people that are experts, an there's a lot of them, and they are saying we are in dire trouble. this is our life support system, this planet. if we don't do something about clean air. i'm unhappy with the democrats too, it's not just the republicans. but this should be a top priority. so they all worry me because i don't think they're really
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telling the truth, or maybe they don't see the truth about what's happening to us. we have to tax the rich, we have to help people who are struggling, we have to do everything we can to create jobs for the people who are able to work, we have to help children become educated so that we have a workforce that's going to be productive in the future and we have to do everything we can to save the planet. >> what do you think of barack obama? >> i hope he gets re-elected. i wish he would be stronger. i think he will be in his second term. i think he's going to be re-elected. i think that he's -- i think he's a good man, but i wish that he was tougher on the issues that i care about and that a lot of people care about. >> a lot of people say about president obama that he's -- you know, he's a very nice guy, people like him. he's clearly intelligent.
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he's a great figure head for america abroad, there's no question of that and i've seen that tangibly in europe and asia and so on. this paralysis we're seeing in washington in particular, a lot of that they say is down to barack obama wanting to be mr. nice guy and get on with the republicans when politics isn't like that. he should have flattened them early on and forced through what he really believed in. >> if he is able to. i mean i'm old enough to have remembered the time when people were friends across aisles, you know, republicans and dem -- especially during lyndon johnson's administration. you know, they would play cards and drink together and they were friends and they would compromise. there was a civility in the body politics and that seems to be gone. and i think that obama has tried to reach out, and i think that the other side is really intransigent.
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i don't know if there's anything that he could have done differently. i hope that i'm wrong, but we feel like we're at some kind of a terrible, terrible impasse, and i don't know how to open the log jam, but it needs to happen and it needs to happen soon. >> it seems there's a very big disconnect now between washington and the regular american people on the street. when you watch the occupy wall street protesters, what they're really protesting about is a general malaise, i think, as much as anything else about the way the political process is stifling their lives. nothing is getting done to improve their lives. >> they're protesting greed. greed is poisoning our country. >> but why? why does that happen? >> i don't know why. >> america didn't used to be associated with greed. it wasn't part of the culture. >> i can't answer the question.
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>> what do your suspicions tell you? >> i don't know. i really -- i'm not going to go there because i don't know how to answer. i don't know how to answer the question of why greed has risen to this level in the last several decades. i don't know -- i don't know what it is that has caused a very, very extreme right wing to be able -- because i think that they're responsible for the impasse. i don't entirely understand why it's true. but, you know, your original question was am i scared. i'm scared, yes, i am. >> well, let's try and lighten the load a bit of your terror, jane. >> i didn't say i'm terrified. >> all right. your moderate disquiet.
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up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. certain restrictions apply. couldn't we do it your way? i don't want to change your traditions. >> i'm a savage. >> my group must -- >> that was a clip from the 1968 film, the one that cemented jane fonda's status as a worldwide sex symbol. what do you think when you look at yourself in that? >> i think it was a charming movie, not very sexy. but at the time young men had their first experiences looking at the film and i'm glad of
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that. i think it's kind of cool that i aroused a lot of young men at that certain time. but i -- compared to -- it's pretty tame compared to what we see now but it's got a lot of charm. we did it before there were any great special effects. we invented them, my then husband, came up with all these ideas how to create special effects and no one had ever done it before, so it's kind of fun. >> when you say it's not very sexy, you realize there are millions of men watching this who would race to disassociate themselves from that comment? >> well, they remember back to when they were very young, i think, looking at it now it doesn't seem so sexy. but i'd like to remake it. i would. i would. maybe i will one day. >> i was going to say, there's nothing to stop you. did you like being a sex symbol? but you've remained a sex symbol. i look at you now and you look
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as glamorous as you've ever looked. >> thank you very much. i've never thought of myself as a sex symbol. i really don't care one way or another. i like to work and i like to do that and it was fun to work with the man i was married to. i'm glad i went on to make movies like "coming home" when i began to produce and "on golden pond." i'm glad at this get stuck in the barbarella mode. >> why wouldn't you be that keen to be a sex symbol? >> i'm 74 years old. i think it would be inappropriate. >> i don't mean now, i mean when you look back at that period of your life you don't seem that happy that you were this global sex figure, if you like. >> well, i wasn't. >> the idol of millions of men. >> if you want to know i wasn't. it did not do well at the box office, it's become a cult film. but it was not a big deal at the time. and, you know, i came back and
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pretty soon after i did "they shoot horses, don't they," so that window of time when one could have slotted me into sex symbol didn't really last because at heart i'm a serious actress who much preferred being in "they don't horses don't they" and shortly after that "klute." i think being stuck with a label like sex symbol can be very limiting. if i man i care about finds me sexy, that's great, but i don't want to be labeled anything. >> who do you think was the sexiest of all the stars you've ever seen? >> ava gardner as the woman. i can't think of any -- redford i guess is my favorite, i made three movies with him. >> i interviewed robert redford recent ly and he just exudes it still right now. i think you two should make a movie.
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>> i do too. >> i wouldn't do barbarella with angelina jolie. i did have an affair with an angel in the movie and if i had a baby i'd lay an egg. i won't tell you anymore because maybe i'll do it one day. >> tell me about acting, though. if you were to tell me what really has excited your passions in life, on a chart list of top three, where would acting fall? >> there have been moments in some films when it feels transcendent, when it is the most wonderful feeling when you have entered someone else's reality and you know that you're
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there. part of you knows that it's not real, and yet you are living inside another human being and it's meaningful and it works. and when that happens in the context of a film that you produced and conceived of and that is carrying a message that is something meaningful to you, that is very -- that is beautiful. it happened in "on golden pond" which i produced for my father, it happened in "coming home" which i was instrumental in getting done, and it happened in "9 to 5" which was my idea. it's happened a few times. and when all those things come together, when what you're saying through art is something that you're passionate about and you love the character and inhabit the character so deeply that it's transformative, that's really, really exciting. i've been fortunate enough to
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have done things in my life that have -- people tell me have helped them, have made them happier, better, more clear about their own lives, helped them move forward in their lives. that is profoundly rewarding. and, you know, i -- about five years ago when i had written my memoirs and i was on a road tour promoting my memoirs, especially women would line up to get me to sign their books. one would come along and say remember that march in san diego in '71 when we marched together against the war. the next woman would come and say, oh, cat blue, my favorite movie, it saved my life when i was depressed. and another woman would come and say that workout video you did helped me get over -- you know. and i realize that i have interacted with people in this country in so many different
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ways over the course of a long time. and it feels good, it really does. >> which is the movie that if you could be remembered for one you would choose? >> well, i think the one i'll be remembered for is "coming home" because it was such a beautiful movie and such a universal -- so many girls have fathers that had a hard time loving them and people really identified with that movie and i think it really -- a lot of people said to me, men and women, but mostly women, i saw the movie and then i went and brought my father to see it and it changed our relationship. so that's a movie that's been very meaningful to people. but i think "coming home," "the doll maker" which i won an emmy for. it's hard to pick one. it's like saying what's your favorite child. i'm proud of many of them. >> i have a favorite, which is "on golden pond."
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i want to come back and talk to you after the break specifically about that and about your father and your extraordinary family. can i help you? yeah, can i get a full-sized car? for full-sized cars, please listen to the following menu. for convertibles, press star one. i didn't catch that. to speak to a representative, please say representative now. representative. goodbye! you don't like automated customer service, and neither do we. that's why, unlike other cards, no matter when you call chase sapphire preferred, you immediately get a person not a prompt. chase sapphire preferred. a card of a different color. (phone ringing) chase sapphire preferred, this is julie in springfield. [ male announcer ] it has an hd webcam,
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maybe you and i should have the kind of relationship that we're supposed to have. >> what kind of relationship is that? >> well, you know, like a father and a daughter. >> just in the nick of time, huh? worried about the will, are you? well, i'm leaving everything to you except what i'm taking with me. >> just stop it. >> jane fonda and her father, henry fonda, in 1981's "on golden pond." there are very few fathers and daughters that performed together, let alone oscar winning ones. when you look back at that, jane, what was the experience like for you working so closely with your father. >> i feel so blessed, piers, to have been able to have that experience. he died five months later. i bought the play, i made the movie because i wanted to work with him.
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we knew he was dying. but to have found a play in which the father-daughter characters so mirrored our own real-life relationship was -- it was amazing. and to have been able to say those words to him and to have the resolution at the end of the movie, it's hard for me to look at the movie still even now. >> yeah, i can see -- yeah, i can see you looking away, actually, an i understood that because of course for us you're both movie stars and for you you're watching your father there, and this is shortly before he died. >> yeah. i miss him so much. i feel him so present in my life all the time. and that makes me very happy. >> what kind of man was he? i've read a lot of reports over the years that he could be prone to being cold and detached, that it wasn't always easy as a father-daughter relationship.
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but what would you say? what do you think the honest portrayal of your father would be as a father? >> well, let's start with a man. as a man, he was a man of profound integrity. he was a good man. he had good values. he had problems in the relationship department. he had problems with emotions, which is interesting for an actor. a hard time expressing emotions and being around someone who was emotional. it was absolutely terrifying to him. you know, he was -- he was difficult. but he did his best. he did the best he could. and i was able to tell him that before he died. and, you know, if there had been prozac then i think probably our lives would have been very different. but he did the best he could, and i -- and i'm so grateful to him. and grateful that whatever he
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didn't say to me, he communicated through his movies, "12 angry men," "young abe lincoln," "the young man," "grapes of wrath." these were the movies that meant something to him, these were the values that he held close to him and i knew that. and i think some of that seeped into me. the need for justice and equality and fairness and standing up for the underdog, that's what he represented. and i'm proud that in some small way i'm his daughter. >> people said to me as i was interviewing you be careful with jane fonda, she's fiesty, she's challenge and will be on you. i've watched interviews you've given before and i would describe it as more challenging and passionate. you take things seriously because you believe in them and you have this driven passion, which i've always assumed that you got from your father and from your strong family. if you were analyzing yourself,
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how would you describe your character? >> i don't see myself particularly as fiesty. i see myself as caring passionately about things. now, my dad expressed what he cared passionately about different than me, but that's a generational thing. you know, he was of a generation when you -- you know, you expressed yourself through voting. he did the best he could because he always voted for the people that he thought would make a difference. i was a protester. and it was hard for him to understand that. so in that sense we were different. i -- you know, i'm my father's daughter in the sense that i do believe strongly in things and, you know, i try to -- i try to manifest those things in my life and in the social political activist work i do.
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and in some of the movies that i've made. >> what do you think your father would have made of the way that you have turned out? >> well, he pretty much knew the way i turned out. i mean i was already turning out who i am when he died. the one thing that i know that he would have been really happy about is that i was married to ted turner. i found out after my dad died that he was fascinated by ted turner. dad loved the news. he was an avid reader of the news. and he told a reporter that once interviewed me that he thought that ted turner was the greatest guy in the world because he started cnn. and dad never -- well, i kind of -- there was something about -- ted and i -- the cover of "esquire" once had this part of the picture was ted and this part was me or maybe it was the other way around and when you
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put the two halves of our face together it was my father. ted reminds me in many ways of my father. they both loved to fish. sometimes i'd be out there on a stream fishing with ted and it was like my dad was there. and i just thought, dad, i hope you know that i actually married this man, who you loved and admired so much. >> i had lunch with ted turner a few months ago, and i thought he was an utterly compelling man in every way. >> totally. >> just an irresistible life force. i imagined that he would be actually not easy to live with because he has this sort of burning energy all the time and need to keep doing stuff, which i can imagine given the way that you are, you know, it was a cocktail -- a heady cocktail, to put it mildly. >> we had a great time for ten years. i am -- i just am so happy that i got to spend ten years with him. it ended when it was supposed to end and we're very, very close.
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i just talked to him today, i told him i was going to be on the show. and i'm so proud of him. he's done so much good work in the world. >> he has, an extraordinary man. let's take another break, jane. i want to come back and talk to you about workout videos, the exercise revolution that you helped start and have continued and how it can help me. >> okay. [ male announcer ] tom's discovering that living healthy can be fun. see? he's taking his vitamins. new one a day vitacraves plus omega-3 dha is a complete multivitamin for adults. plus an excellent source of omega-3 dha in a great tasting gummy. one a day, gummies for grown-ups. give you the unexpected burden of constipation? certain prescription medications can cause occasional constipation, which is why people turn to senokot-s tablets. senokot-s is the leading brand that has the proven effectiveness of a natural vegetable laxative ingredient
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heels up, two, three, four, legs to the side, three, four, five, breathe, six, seven, eight, now jog. >> one of jane fonda's workout videos in the early '80s and you have a new set of dvds out called the primetime series for the baby boomer generation. i'm one of those. how are you going to get me back into shape with this dvd. >> well, first of all, you've got to do it. do you work out? >> i try. it's what i call a british workout where you do it so you can carry on eating and drinking. >> well, it's better than nothing. you know, when you're older, it's more important than ever that you stay physically active. you know, i wrote this book "primetime" about the last third of life.
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and in doing the research over four years, i really was struck by what a difference it makes to -- not only to your body but to your mind, to your self-esteem, to all kinds of things. and, you know, i thought, well, older people can't do the videos that i used to do and they can't do the videos that most people are releasing right now, but i'm old and i've got a hip replacement and a knee replacement and i know how to make videos for people who are not fit and maybe people who have never worked out before and people who are older. i did two last year and they're best sellers, and i get feedback from 40-year-olds and 80-year-olds and it's really made a difference. so i got motivated to do two more. they're kind of like my older ones in the sense that i'm back in a studio and there's other people with me. one thing that's really great and different is that we have live music. we have a band on the set with us and it's just a lot of fun.
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i want to get people to stay active so that they can get up and down out of a chair, in and out of a car by themselves and pick up their grandchildren and back a car down a driveway looking over their shoulder. there's just all kinds of things that become harder as you get older. but if you keep your bones moving and your muscles moving and your heart pumping and your brain working, then it's going to be a lot easier. and they're effective and they're fun, so i'm real proud of them. >> you've gone through your life never, it seems to me, ever being entirely happy with your body. how do you feel about it now? have you learned to love yourself? >> i grew up thinking that if you weren't perfect that no one would love you, and i was that way for quite a long time. and you can't really be superhappy if you think you're supposed to be perfect because we're not perfect and we're not supposed to be perfect. it took me a long time to say,
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okay, i'm good enough. good enough is good enough. am i 100% that way? no, frankly, i'm a creature of the '50s and i'll never entirely get over it, but i'm not compulsive anymore, i don't work out compulsively. i have a boyfriend who thinks that i'm just fine. yeah, i feel okay about myself. i'm not perfect and i don't care anymore and i'm not making these videos so people can look like me and people know that. i'm just trying to make people feel good. one of the things that i love so much, because i didn't used to be healthy and i didn't used to work out. this came to me rather in my 40s in fact. and one of the things that i learned that to me is so beautiful is how it changes your head. it changes your feelings about yourself. and your attitude about the world. you gain self-esteem, you think more clearly. those endorphins start to pump and it's just easier to deal
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with the problems of life when you remain physically active. and the chances are if you do it for you, you'll like yourself more and then you'll tend to find people being attracted to you. >> how many times do you think you've properly been in love in your life? >> oh, maybe five times. that's a lot. but i'm old, so -- >> that is a lot. you've done well. >> i have. i've been lucky. >> if you could take one of those people to a desert island for the rest of your life and it can't be your current partner, so we'll have to eliminate him -- >> it would be my girl friends. it would be my girl friends. >> but if i forced you to take one of the men you've loved in your life, who would it be? >> you couldn't. you couldn't. >> really? >> no. been there, done that. i mean i'm very happy right now. i have a lover and i'm real happy, but i wouldn't particularly want to go to a desert island.
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i think the longest lived relationships are my girlfriends. women have a whole network of nurturing emotional relationships. and in terms of longevity, put me on a desert island with a bunch of women friends. >> you'd probably have a happier time. we're going to take a final break and come back. i want to talk to you about marilyn monroe, michael jackson, and what has been the greatest moment of your life. just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health. just a second. just, just one second. ♪ what are you looking at? don't look up there. why are you looking up? ♪ get outta the car. get outta the car. ♪
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oh, i'm so happy for you. congratulations. thank you. i'm so happy for you. i'm so pleased that you're going to be my daughter-in-law. oh, congratulations. >> thank you. >> 15 years of not acting, jane fonda burst back onto the scene with "monster-in-law" with jennifer lopez. you said it's one of the best career moves you've made. >> well, it was a fantastic role. different than anything i've ever done. and i knew having spent ten years with ted turner i knew how to play outrageous and over the top in a way that was also lovable. he taught me that. and it was just -- it was a fabulous part and i knew that people would come to the movie because of jennifer and they
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would discover, rediscover jane fonda. >> i want to talk to you briefly about two very iconic people in the world of entertainment, marilyn monroe, michael jackson. you knew them both. marilyn has a new film out at the moment, a very, very good movie, and i interviewed michelle williams about it last week. what do you think the biggest miscon accept beings marilyn was? >> i was very, very drawn to her. she -- to me, she was like a golden child. she radiated light and vulnerability and i think that she was attracted to me as she used to gravitate a little bit to me at parties because she knew that i was not very secure either and she was fragile and i was very touched by her. michael jackson also, someone who was fragile.
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you know, the -- both of them had these -- these beyond famous iconic images. and yet in their inner most selves, they were very, very vulnerable, damaged people. and it was the tension between those two things perhaps that made them so brilliant each in their own way. i mean, michael, what a genius in terms of music and dancing and moves and the impact that he had on our musical culture. it was just amazing. and yet, you know, i lived with him for a week when i was making "on golden pond," he came and he wanted to watch my father and katharine hepburn work. he was interested in becoming a movie actor and we would stay up at night talking and it you know, there was this part of him that was like a lost soul and then there was this other part of him that was a savvy i brilliant businessman. and inspired talent. so you know, it was just very
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attractive to be around people with that kind of -- those kind of contradictions. >> piers: when you saw the tragic way that michael jackson's life ended and the trial and everything else, what was your view of that? i mean, do you think that michael, in the end, just became an awful kind of celebrity cliche in the sense that he was, apparently just living off all of drugs and doctors were preying on him and so on and so on. was that going be someone as genius-like and tormented one is going to go >> just one is absolutely brilliant doesn't mean you have to be screwed up. i think that -- i don't think it's a celebrity cliche what happened to michael either. but i do think -- i remember once he was visiting me. aid ranch in santa barbara. and -- in california. answered came and visit visited me once and i was walking him around. it was how he was introduced to that area where he eventually bought never, never land, when i had him to my ranch. i was walking around and showing
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him the ranch and i pointed to a place at the edge of the cliff and i said that's where i'm going to be buried and i thought he was going to have a meltdown. he -- he -- the notion that i could count on that the fact that i was gonna die was anathema to him. he screamed. and he talked about how woe get into an oxygen tank and he thought that was going to keep him, you know, alive forever. i -- i think growing old would have been very, very, very difficult for michael. there was a lot of demons chasing that kid and i think it would have been hard for him. i wish it had happened another way but it's hard to imagine that someone that was as tormented as he was could have sort of lived a long and peaceful and natural life. i just don't think so. >> i agree. very sad. jane, i said at the start of the interview, you have had an extraordinary life. when you look back at it all, with the exception of marriage and the birth office children,
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what would you say has been the greatest moment of your life? >> i know you asked me that right before the break so i spent the break trying to figure it out, you know something it is really hard. right now, i don't know. i'm -- i've learned and i've made a conscious effort to learn to be right here and now. i've had incredible experiences in my life, like when i picked up the oscar for my father for "on golden pond" and two of my own oscars and you know, just -- i think i'm happiest when i'm up at the top of a mountain about 14 feet high, 14,000 feet high and i've done that a lot and i love being out in nature very high up where the air is thin. those are perhaps my happiest times but i don't nose. i don't think back. right now is -- i've never been happier, frank linger and is the
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truth, i'm not being coy. >> that is a perfectly good answer, you have never been happier, it has been a fascinating, a fascinating interview, jane. you had been exactly how i hoped would you, formidable and challenging but also very, very interesting to listen to could i have done that for hours. so thank you very much. >> thank you. and have a nice baby. i'm glad that you're a new father. that's exciting. >> piers: i agree. >> try to get some sleep. >> piers: i will try. thank you very much. so who ordered the cereal that can help lower cholesterol
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