i'm -- i battled depression all of my life, i had it on both sides of my family, it's always been a problem. and suddenly i found myself happy, not stressed, not anxious. then i thought, well, is this unique to me? and if not, why is nobody talking about it? so i began to do a lot of research. and i found out that i'm the majority. >> rose: most people are happy after 50 than before. >> than before 50. yes. a huge study was done. 350,00 americans, from very young ages to very old ages and it was discovered that after 50 not all but most people are happier, less anxious, less stressed, less hostile emotions. that's part of the reason they're hpier but what else? >> there are a lot of reasons. we have a long backward perspective. we have been the, we' done it, we survived it. we have been in financi crises, we have had our hearts broken, and we survived.

we know where the inger is lurking in the bush. we don't have to kp going back and looking. we don't have to be hyper vigilant. young people, they have this long horizon in front of them. they don't know what they need and don't knee and who he thank need to know and what they need to get -- and it's very stressful. when you get older, you know what you can let go of and become lighter. and i found it true from myself, and i discovered that the experts say it's true of most people, regardless of whether they were rich, poor, man, woman, married, not, whatever. >> jane fonda for the hour, next. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following: funding for charlie rose was provided by the following: every story needs a hero we can all root for. who beats the odds and comes out on top.

but this isn't just a hollywood storyline. it's happening every day, all across america. every time a storefront opens. or the midnight oil is burned. or when someone chases a dream, not just a dollar. they are small business owners. so if you wanna ot for a real hero, support small business. shop small. additional funding provided by these funders: captiong sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> jane fonda is here. she has lived many lives in her

73 years. she has been on oscar winning actor, a philanthropist and a best-selling author. she is also a movie star. here ia look at her film career. >> you don't consider this a crises? our whole marriage is hanging in the balance. >> it is? when did this happen? >> just now. it has suddenly become very clear to me that you and i have absolutely nothing in common. >> that? nobody has done that for centuries. nobody except the very poor who can't afford the pills and the psycho cardiogram readings. >> why not. >> because it was supposed to be a distraction to dangerous efficiency. >> i came to enjoy it because it made me feel good. it made me feel like i wasn't alone. it made me feel that i had some control over myself, that i had some control over my life. >> people don't see me as i really am. people look at me and they see

oh, cheery sally, the captain's wife. sometimes i feel like i'm becoming what people see. >> you lied to me last night. you to me it was a suck valve. >> it was a stuck valv >> it was not. >> can i tell you about the accident, i took that and showed it to a nuclear engineer. you almost uncovered the core. >> we're not going to leave until you tell us what happened at the plant. >> violet didn't mean to kill you. she accidently put rat poison in your coffe mrhart? mr. hart? you gave me your word. >> i lied! >> dam it. >> you're not leaving this office. >> watch me. >> it just seems that you and me have been mad at each other for so long. >> i didn't think we were mad. i thought we just di'tike

each other. >> i want to be your friend. >> you go around here expecting applause for the way you treated this child? >> she is not a child. >> and she has a right to know that there's a world out there filled with people that don't believe in god and aren't any worse off than you mother, peleho 0 have gone through their entire lives without bending their knee to somebody, and people that fall in love and have babies and are occasiolly very happy. >> why do they call it a good cry? all it does a make you look like hell and what is missing is still miss. >> listen, you have your kids, you you have your family -- >> i have a lot of days and nights ahead of me. >> everybody has a past, honey. find something. and i i'm going to open up the house and get a party planner. i'm going to give them an engagement party. >> and then what, lock her in the basement? >> when he sees how out of place she is in his world, it's going to be over!

>> this will end badly. >> i'm glad you're here, rachel. >> so do you guys have anything better aund re than harley wilson? >> keep your dress on. i got you a job. >> a what? >> starts monday. just a brisk walk from here. i will wake you at 7:00. >> i'm not working. >> one more rule -- you live here, you work. >> her current life, she says, is the happiest she has ever known. her new book "prime time" offers personal wisdom on making the most of one's life, particularly the second halfof it. i'm eased to have jane fonda ck at the table. welcome. >> thank you charlie. >> last time you were here i was not here. barbara walters was here. >> i'm glad you're well and good you're here. >> you sat down to write this with what kind of motivation and what kind of intent? >> well, i -you know, when

you're outside of oldness looking in, it seems so scary. but whe you're inside it, it's not scary at all. and you know, i kept thinking, you know, i battled depression all of my life, i had it on both sides of my family. it's always been a problem. and suddenly i found myself happy, not stressed, not anxious. and i thought, well, is this unique to me? and if not, why is nobody talking about it? so i began to do a lot of research and i found out that i'm the majority. >> rose: most people are happy after 50 than before? >> than before 50, yes. a huge study was done, 350,000 americans, from very young ages to very old ages, and it was discover that after 50, not all, b most people are happier, less anxious, less stressed, less hostile emotions. that's part of the reason they're happier but what else? >> there's a lot of reasons. we very a long backward

perspective. we have been there. we have done it. we survive it. we have been in financial crises. we have had our hearts broken and we survived. we know where the tiger is lurking in the bush. we don't have to deep going back and looking. we don't have be hyper vigilant. young people have this long horizon in front ofhem. they don't know what they need and who they need to know and what they need to get. it's very stressful. when you're older, you know what you can let go of and you bece lighter. and i found it true for myself and i discovered that the experts say it's true of most people, regardless of whether they were rich, poor, man, woman, married, not, whatever. so i decided that i wanted to write a book about it and try to find out even more. these aren't my ideas, although it's very personal and auto biographical. >> and your perspective. >> i spent almost four years researching and traveling around the untry and talking to

experts. you say what you did is made a list of everything i would have wanted to november about getting older when you were in your 40's. >> yes. and i discovered there's about 11 essential things that you need to do to go through what i call the third act, the last three decades of your life, with a sense of well being, with a modicum of wisdom happiness. some of them are the obvious ce, not smoking, not drinking too much. >> exercise. >> keeping physically active. eating properly becomes more importan than ever. also having a strong social network. giving back. general activity is what eric erickson calls it paying attention to the younger generation as a mentor, a coach. i wrote a lot about catherine hepburn. she took seriously the rolefulledder. she took me under her wing and

passed on her wisdom to me. >> this happened when you were making "on golden pd." >> "on golden pond." >> you didn't know her before. >> i didn't know her before. >> sympathy took you under wing. >> it was prickly. it wasn't always easy. but i read a wonderful back called "man's search for meaning" and one of the things he says in it is if architects want to strengthen an old arch, they put more weight on it. i think of catherine hepburn. she was an old arch that carried a lot of weight, of wisdom, wanting to be a teacher. when you have that in you as an older person, you tend to be happier. interestingly enough, the research shows that women who exbit what eric erickson called generaltivity tend to have more orgasms. i'm sure that really fascinates you. >> yes, it does. >> caring about the bigger picture ismportant, having a good attitude. >> take a look at this. this is an arc and this i a staircase. >> the old paradigm view of

aging is the arc, you are born, peek at mid life and decline to decrepitude. and then you mound in terms of spiritual ground of growth, emotional growth, brvegging wiser. -- becoming wiser. and that isrue. i show in my book how you can do that. we're fine nears. now the average person lives 34 years longer than our great grandparents d it's a whole second adult lifetime that has been added on so why not do everything you can to make the most of it. a third of it goes, we have nothing to do with it. it's genetic, laid in stone. that means 2/3 of it, we can decide with our choices how well we want to do. >> your father had an issue with depression. >> all of the fonda men had undiagnosed depression, yes. >> is that an issue for you? >> well, i think if there had been prozac in his day, probably

we would have been quite different, yeah. t it wasn't just that. it was his generation. it was the fact he came from the midwest, you don't express emotion, you don't ask for things, you don't express any kind of need. and you know, he tended to object phi me, gave me the impression if i wasn't pretty and perfect i couldn't be loved. >> when you made "on golden pond," you went into that movie hoping that the film would reflect a reality for you and your dad? >> the film definitely reflect add reality, what i hoped. i produced it. i knehe was dying. what i hoped was that by playing this character with me, where we exchanged words that were so relevant to our real relationships that it was somehow -- it would heal the breach before the end came. i'm not sure it did. i think it d it certainly did for me.

>> who was it like to see him going in to bed. >> i described him when he was dying and i described getting there too late. he died about a minute before i got to hospital. >> before he died, like when you told him you would take care of his wife. >> he became -- i told him i loved him. i told him that i knew he had done his best and that i hoped he would forgive me and he cried. it was clear that he was very uncomfortable, that i could see that. and i left and some time later, shirley, his wonderful wife came and found him and hewas still crying. i don't think that anyone had really expressed to him they knew that there wasn't much time left and they wanted to have closure and i think it moved him. but watching him die taught me that i wasn't afraid of death. what i'm really scared of is getting to the end of life with a lot of regrets when it's too

late to do anything about it. so when i realized, when i turned9 and realized in year i'm going to be 60, it's going to be the beginning of my last act. and last acts are important. you know, last acts can make sense of the first two acts, so i have to make sense of how i want to live this last act in such a way so that when i get to the end, the regrets will be minimal, so that's -- >> have you been reducing them? >> i have. i have, yes. >> what would you be worried about in terms of regret? >> well, i think the main one would be that i had never had a really intimate relationship with a man. >> what do you mean by intimacy? >> i mean two whole authentic people showing up for each other, bringing their entire selfs to the tab. you know, intimacy requires self revelation and if you think you're yucky, if youhink, my d, if you see who i ally am,

you won't love me, then you tend to hold back. i wanted to be able to bring myself to the table. i can do it with a woman but i wanted to be able to die having had that experience. >> and the idea is we're afraid that if we give all people will not like us? they will see something about us that we don't like? >> if you have been brought up to feel that unless you're perfect you won't be loved, yes, that is a problem. >> and your dad reinforced that idea, unless you look this way people will not like you so you have to do everything you can to look that way. >> to look at way and be a certain way. >> but you have been interested to interesting men, tom hayden, roger bedin, going from a film directory political activist to ted turner, a mogul and enormously successful sportsman and entrepreneur, no intimacy though? >> i thought they were so different from my father. and in. ways they are. but the thing they all have in

common is they're challenged in the intimacy department. >> you thought each one ofthem would be different from your dad. >> well, theyer. >> and you were looking for that. >> i wanted that, yes. because i knew thattive wouldn't be able to be with a man that was like my dad and they seemed so glircht cold would be -- remote. >> and what i write about in "prime time" is the moment that i realized that i couldn't stay with ted and become a whole person. that was one of the things that i wanted to have happen before i died. >> to be a whole person. >> to be a whole person. >> and you hoped to do it with him but found out -- >> -- i found out couldn't. and i had up to then, i was 62 years old, and i -- >> and he had made you happy. >> well, i loved him. i still do. i'm not in love with him but i love him.

i remained close to all of -- to all three of my husbands. >> roger bedim is still alive. >> no, he died in 2000. >> the big revelation for me, and i love how i write about it in this book, is i realized, i have always needed to have been defined by a man, i needed to be validated by a man. and when i was 62 years old and became single, i thought, i'm ok, i don't need a man anymore to define me. and that was -- and the reason that i got to that point is because i had spent a year doing what i discovered is called "a life review." a life review. i figured in order to know how to do my third ac i had to go back and figure out what the first two acts were about. how much of it was about me and how much of it was about my parents and about my grandparents: and being able to understand that, i couldorgive them and myself, and i could go

forward with confidence knowing more who i was, and that's a very wonderful thing for a wom to realize that i don't have to have a man with me. >> did you do this on your own or did you seek help or did you read every book you could find or what? >> all of the above. i did it first myself. after having been in therapy in an effort to save my marriage to ted. and then i decided to write a book, which was my memoirs, which was a best-seller. and that experienceas what i call my life review. now, you don't have to have it published in order to do a life review but it's one of the essential 11 ingdients for successful aging and i write about how to do it. >> i recorded a segment while you were watching called what i learned when i almost died by chris lick, and you said -- >> i was fascinated by that program because he talks about having almost died. and you said, well, what happened to you?

and he said it was like being reset. it didn't change what he does. he still is a producer. but it changed who he was fundamentally as a man. that's what i got out of that very fascinating interview that you did with him. and the same thing happened to me with the life review. you know, it's -- again, to quote victor franko, he said everything in your life can be taken from you except one thing, how you choose to react to the situations in your life, you know, what attitudes you attach to the realities of your life. now, if, over time,editudes that you have attached, the interpretations have been negative, that manifests neurologically. there are pathways that are created with chemicals and electrical signals to your brain and they become hard wired and it can be very stressful. it can be bad for you. if you, through doing a life review or meditation or a

cognitive therapy, can change the way you relate to the events of your life -- now, it happened very dramatically with chris but it can happen through contemplation, you know, over the events. it's not just having experiences; it's reflecting on your experiences that can change the pathways to your explain, it can create positive pathways. it's like changing a thermostat where you can reset. you reset and become -- i do same this i used to do but i'm quite a different person. >> you exercise, you compare about ur physical appearance. >> sure. >> i didn't quite understand why you felt like you, with ted, you couldn't find yourself. was it because ted always needs someone with him, the nature of who he is? >> the best way i can describe it is, ted lives vertically -- i mean horizontally. he skims across life, very fast.

utterly fascinating. when i got to be around 60, and because i had been reflecting on my life, i had more confidence. i realized i needed something different. i wanted to live this way. i wanted to drill down. i wanted to be youet. >> when you talked to him about it, did he understand? >> no, he didn't. and tried -- oh, charlie i tried. so hard. because i love him so much. i gave him books to read "tuesdays with morrie" and -- >> did he read them? >> he did. >> but it didn't take? >> no. >> it wasn't who he was. >> if you're chased by demons, you have to keep running. and i didn't want to live that way anymore. >> the demon in him is the fact he lost his father by suicide or -- >> that was later. you know, early stuff, the time when so much of what is man is is formed when he is 5 and 6 years old when he first goes to public school, when he first leaves home. for girls it's puberty.

and he -- you know, ted was traumatized when he was a young boy and it leftery deep wounds. >> but hean talk about it. >>es, he talks about it but he doesn't -- you know what i mean and. >> he understands but can't internalize it. >> you have to go back there and you have to bring it back into you. i take people through act 1 and act 2, asking them questions, you know did this happen? did that happen? if you were a man was this true, or that? so you begin to think of it in another way and take the time not just to then i did this and then i did that, but how did you feel? how did you feel? when he told me his story, ted, i cried. and he couldn't understand why i was crying. he had no empathy for himself. >> what about tom hayden. >> i don't understand tom.

ted, i can understand. i don't understand tom. he is -- i don't regret a minute of the 17 years we were together. and we have a wonderful son. but i don't know why he is the way he is. >> and if you had a conversation with him today,ou would not be able to -- >> i wouldn't know where to start. >> when you were 50 he came and said he was in love with another woman. >> yeah, on my birthday. he was brave. i would never have had the guts to do it. it was not a good marriage. he was brave to do it. >> but you admired him because of his intellect because he was -- because you believed in his principals. >> yeah. >> you learn a lot from everybody. i mean you are a learner. >> i am. >> you really are. >> that's why i love to write because i love to study and drill down into things. and i really think -- you know, men, men have read this book and oh, my god this is for men too. and 40-year-olds have read it.

>> it's about living your life to the fullest and understanding that everything needs to the next thing. it's not going here and declining. it's in a sense, a stairway. go a doctor give you that or is that simply a concept that you came to? >> no, i read everything could i get my hands on. >> then thiezers. >> i knew fartlyhy i w -- i had such a deep since of well being in my 60s and early 70's. reading the experts -- >> you can see yourself in that. >> -- allows me to understand the underpinnings, of the cognitive and scientific underpinnings for why that is true. >> if you understand the context you can see how it fits in. these are my my ideas but i flesh them out with my own personal stories. and you have found intimacy in your life. >> i have. >> do you understand why he is different.

>> it's not so much he is different. i'm different. >> if he can give you intimacy, the intimacy is not because of you, it's because -- >> no, it was because ofly. >> it was. >> it was me and i chose men who were challenged like i was. >> but you needed intimacy, you chose men that could never give it. you needed intimacy and chose men that could never give it to you. >> yes. and i'm sure men came my way who, if i would have gone with them, they would have said, come on, fonda, show up. and i would have gone ahh! so i chose men that never asked me to show up for various reasons. d the man that would have said come on, fonda, show up. you would have been scared of him. >> scared of him. run the opposite way. >> because? >> because iidn't know how 0 to do it or what it meant o i would have thought if i'm supposed to -- i will just tell you a couple of stories of the extent to which i was not in my skin. i tried out -- i audition the

for the movie splendor in the grass with warren beatty and he had not been cast in it yet. i will never forge it was thter on broadway, because anne cooled me down to the foot list and said to me, are you am bishts? and i said, no. no. >> of course you are. >> the minute the words came out of my mouth i knew i had lost the part. it was like, why did i say that? i say that because good girls are not ambitious. kenneth hindman once took me to dinner, and he said, what do you want? what do you want from the audience? >> i said i want to be accepted. >> you know, i had no -- i was not an embodied person, do you know what i mean? so i write in here about how to become embodied and why it's important. i'm with somebody now, i will never get married again, and we're very, very different.

but one of the great things about getting older is that you know -- ok, he doe'thave these things. but i don't really need those things anymore. i don't need to be valid dated by a man. i want someone with no hidden agenda. someone that can be a real companion and i can have fun with and, you know, there's nothing of those old issues there. >> and you knew it when you saw it? >> well, it took a while. it takes a while. >> you still, as you have said in here, you care about exercise and vanity and a whole range of things. you acknowledge plastic surgery. >> i had plastic surgery last year. >> but you also make.point you had better choose a good doctor. >> yeah, it's horrible to see women -- >> where incompetent surgeons did things. i'm not proud i had the bags taken out. >> why are you not proud? >> i wish i was like vanessa red grave and i could -- you know, i

am what i am. but i'm not. >> and i wanted to gain a little more time as an actor. and the exercise part, what i -- i have gone back into the exercise business because one of the things -- i had not made a video for, boy, almost years. i discovered during the research that it's good to exercise when you're young. when you're older, it's hand tore and it and make all of the difference in the world. you don't have to do some rigorous olympian kind of exercise but staying physically active is important. i thought i'm theerfect person to do videos, or do dvd's for people who are older, who have to move slowly and didn't could the same type of thing and i just won best video award of the year. >> why am i not surprised. there's also this: one has to live the life to find the truth. you can't have the truth given to you when you're 21.

you can't absorb it. you can't at 21 say, if somebody comes and says i'm going to give you all of my life lessons and you will be just fine and you will be 40 years ahead of me. >> no, you can't give it all. you can give little snitch its. >> you have to learn what it is to be jealous, angry, rejectd, successful, competitive, self-reliant, all of that, that's a learning experience, and it's a bit like people who, you know, said can't understand great russian novels until, you know, they have had a few years -- >> mileage under their belt. >> until they're at least in their 30's to understand what's it is that tolstoy was writing about. >> sorrow and pain. >> all of that good stuff. that's what life is about. so it's not a perfect journey. to ace journey in which there are lessons andthere's north carolina and success and compromise. >> and the failures that you

learn from, don't you think? >> i do. i think if you analyze success you can learn from it and reinforce it but most people say they learn from failure more than anything else. >> i have. way more, way more. >> beyond relationships, where is the failure in your life? beyond relationships? and i wouldn't consider those failures, i would consider those experiences. >> oh, as a parent, not being present like i should have been. >> why wouldn't you know that. >> i never had an example. >> that's my point. >> i know people that, because they did not have that kind of relationship with their parents, you know, this is what they said about winston churchill. winston churchill, because of the nature of his relationship with his father made him become difficult with the relationship with his son, frequently that's what happens, say with your relationship with your father, you, some might argue, would

become much more present because henry fonda did not become present for you. >> some day. my daughter is a fantastic mother in spite ofmy weaknesses as a parent. >> she is a perfect example of what i'm say. >> yes. r second child is a daughter and she said i'm going to show that mothers and daughters can be really, really close, and she succeeded. it took me longer. but theessage is, it's never too late. you can make for it later. and i have actually studied what it means to be a parent. not knowing w to parent was a failure of mine, and i have learned from it. >> but it doeseem to me, to look at your life, i mean look at evolution. you can define it by relationships, you can die fine it by your own professional achievements; you're someone that learned from the experience. you couldn't be -- you can

answer this better than i could answer this -- you can't find somebody more different from roger bedime than tom hayden, at first glance. >> at first glance. sometimes, you know, the lessons you're supposed to learn are like bees, buzzing around and they keep circling and circling and circling and you think i have learned that and you haven't learned it. >> if you knew then what you know now would you be a better actress, the study of human nature and male-female relationships and anger -- >> i think i started to become a better actress when i became a feminist. and the reason is, that was where i began to understand more why women are the way they are and what are the cultural and social forces that make them the way they are? i was good in klute. a lot of it was i was just

beginning to understand why women do the things they do. i understand her in a way -- you know all of the scenes with the psychiatrist in that movie were improvised and i could never have done it had i not begun to perceive why a woman -- >> your own power as a woman. >> and why would a woman who s smarand intelligent, why she would sell herself for sex. >> what was her name, bree? >> bree daniels, yeah. so, yeah, i would have been -- if i had known those things sooner, i would have been a better actor. i think if i had known catherine hepburn sooner i would have been a better actress. >> why. >> because she is the one that taught me the importance of being self-conscious. i always thought it was a bad thing. i write in there about that too. as opposed to viewing self-conscious as being conscious of how you present yourself to the world, being conscious of how people respond

to you and the ways in which y can mitigate that and improve that, i paid very little attention. i just sort of -- i don't know. i didn't know how to say no. i was offered parties i never should have said yes to because i was afraid a second one wouldn't come along. >> you you saithat for a while about barbell abut i understand now yolook and say that had merit to it. >> i don't regret it. i wish i could do it again because i would do it differently. i know how to do it really well. >> how would you do it today? >> i'm too old. >> how would you do it today? >> well, first of all, here is a woman who came from a planet that was so evolved they didn't know what the word war meant. they didn't have bombs and guns. she was sent from the evil planet to capture the bad scientist and save of the man it. and she -- in the scene that you showed there was this harry guy

that was asking me to make love with him the way we make love. and she was shocked. the way she made love was by touching fingertips and hair would stand on the end. if she is coming from such an evolved planet where they don't even know what war meant, she should be coming to a planet where they take pills and touch fingertips, she should introduce intimacy to this planet. >> that's the way you play it now. >> that's the way i would do it now. she would -- you know, when i was in the machine that was supposed to kill me through orgasm,nstead of playing like i was scared, i should have gotten in that machine and laughed at it, knowing ful well i was going to blow its fuses, there's no way this machine is going to kill me. i would love to do it again. >> do you say that about most of the performance >> i hate to loo at my movies because always want to do them over again.

klute is different. >> you got that. >> i nailed that. i thought that was -- >> how about "they shoo horses, don't they"? >> i thought that wasood. >> you got an oscar nomination for that. >> that was a good movie. i got lucky. i worked with some wonderful directors. yeah. but most of them i would like to do over again. >> here is what is interesting. you would like to make some choices different. you would like to do the rolls over because you could do them better now, have a better sense of things. and you hope that this book will give some wisdom to people. >> i know it will. hopefully they will read it before they enter their third act, because the sooner that you can begin to think about these things and prepare for them, the better. but we're pioneers in this second adult lifetime that we have been given, this gift of time. there's no road map. i'm attempting to draw a road map for people about how to do it. you know, how to make your way

through it on a psical level on a spiritual level on an emotional level, on every kind of level,and i have never quite read a book like that because it goes all the way from physics to penal implants for those who still care about that sort of thing. >> when you look at your vietnam experience, how do you s it? the protest, the sense of being against the war because you believed it was not in our interest to fight. >> there's one thing that i regret. >> what is that? >> something terrible i did that i will go to my grave regretting, sitting on that gun site, which looks like i'm against american soldiers, which is the complete opposite of who i am and who i was. i mean i spent years working with soldiers, helping, active duty servicemen and veterans, in all kinds of ways. i was used to talking to soldiers and working with them.

>> why did you do it? >> it was the end of a ceremony, as i have written aut many, many times, and i just blogged about it at great length. i have a blog called the truth about my trip to vietnam. it was the last day there and the ceremony and they sang songs and asked me to sing a song and we were laughing and clapping and i was here and i sat down and got up and i thought, what have i done? >> you knew it then >> i knew it. and i pleaded with my interpreter. i said, you have to destroy these pictures, because they're going to look like i'm against my own servicemen. later i found out there were japanese photographers there and who knows whether it was they or the vietnamese, i don't know but the photograph came out, and that image is there. doesn't matter really what i say about it, although it s

helped -- what means a lot to me is when i get letters from soldiers on my blog, and i do a lot, saying now i understand and i'm able to forgive. because forgiveness -- i write a lot about forgiveness. forgiveness is one of the most important things. you can't heal until you can forgive. there's been a lot of forgiveness. but it will never of course 100%. and it pains me like a sword in my side. >> more than anything else. >> more than anything else. more than anything else. it was terrible. >> terrible. >> didn't i read somewhere recently you were supposed to do a telephone appearance -- >> qvc canceled because there was a prote about my goi on qvc. >> all about that photograph? >> there was such -- who knows. that certain will youly had a lot to do with it but there are a lot of lies that are circulated but they are lies so i can't regret something that is a lie. what i regret is what i actually

did that was a huge, terrible mistake that creates an image that is not real. but in some ways we created a silk purse out of a so you's ear. out of that came a lot of communicating and dying about the war and what itment and what i was doing and why i was there, and a lot of forgiveness. in some ways, again, sometimes out of failure and pain can come good things, andood things have come from that. >> you mentioned vanessa red grave. you mentioned your father. just watching that performance "on golden pond," i think was that an oscar for him? >> yes. it was his only oscar and he died five months later. >> his daughter gave him the opportunity to do something -- >> and he took it. and she got one too. you know the last thing she said to me? i called her because she didn't go to the awards. my father was too sick to go. i called her the next day to

congratulate her for winning the oscar. "you'll never catch me now!" at first i didn't even know what he was referring to. then i realized oh, that' right, i had two and she had three. and if i had won, we would have been tied. but now she had four and i h two there was no way i was going to catch up with her. what a character. >> the most important thing you learned fm catherine hepburn -- >> don't become soggy. >> you did a lot for me. she witnessed me. she witnessed my relationship with my father. and s had compassion around that. >> did she try to get involved? >> only insofar as she said to me he doesn't realize how much he hurts you. spence was the same way!

she was great. she was great. i just -- that was a magic. can you imagine, what a gift for a daughter who has had a difficult relationship with her father to find a property like that, this play, and to be able to produce it for him in a role that is paralleled what happened in real life, and then to have him win an oscar for it. i'm a very lucky person. yeah. >> it seems to me that you have this quality of growth. i mean, you are constantly, constantly growing. you make mistakes, you make bad choice, t you are a survivor and you have the dpooft grow andern. >> i'm so curious.people say tok good for your age. >> you do. >> inow some of it has to do

with the plastic surgery but i know most of it is because of attude. attitude. i'm curious. i'm interested. that's more important than being interesting. >> the attitude is i want to be this so -- >> i want to learn. i want to learn. i learn all the time. every day i learn. interested in people, interested in everything. >> so at this sta what is your greatest pleasure? >> being alone at the top of a mountain, preferably about 14,000 feet up. that's where i'm happiest. >> being alone -- >> i love being alone. and i love being alone at high altitudes where there's nothing but wildness around me, other mountaintops and nature and -- >> this is the same woman who in the same conversation has said what she missed all of her life was intimacy. >> well, when i come down from the mountain, i want to have intimacy. >> you want to be able to describe it? >> no, i want to experience it.

but have always liked to climb mountains and be alone. but it's more fulfilling to do it when you know that on the other side o the mountain is real relationship and real relationship becomes easier, i think, when you get older. >> part of your relationship with men is you wanted to please them, whether it was roger and all kind of sexual relationships; whether it was tom and being involved in his polical life. >> well i was already a political activist -- >> and then ted, just to share the life. because you said ted could never be alone. i couldn't be what i was because i had to be with him because he cod never be alone. >> he can't be alone. >> and also implicit in it is you would never want to trust him alone. >> well, i -- it was more that i couldn't is a life of my own. in the beginning, i thought i didn't need one, because he taught me so much.

you know when i really realized that i'm in love with this man? we were at his place in montana. his small place with 60,000 acres. and he leaned out of the window and he said, that's a paragan falcon. you could hardly see it. just the silhouette. i thought he knows birds from their silhouette ask how they fly. he taught me about the land and how to be a good steward of the land. he taught me about exploring and adventure. oh, he taught me about a lot. >> dide teach you about courage. >> no, i knew about courage. i might have taught him somethinabout courage. but he is very brave. he is vobrave and very organized. >> you might have taught him about courage in what way? >> emotionally. i was starting to become more courageous emotionally. we taught each other a lot. we western really, really good

together. but a point came where i realized that i'm not through living my own life. >> there was also a point during that time that you became spiritual. does that continue? >> he was not happy about that. i became a christian. and he is -- it's like i had to choose. >> you had to choose between -- >> my faith and him. >> and you chose -- >> i chose, well, i it wasn't only that but i said i'm not going to give up what's has become very important to me. >> why would anyone want you to make that choice between him and your faith? >> i couldn't be true to two things like that. you know, i don't know. you will have to ask him. you will interview him again. maybe you will ask him. i'm not sure. but itup set him a lot. and you know, that was when i began to realize -- it upset him a lot. >> that i couldn't -- you know, i talked about he lives this way and i nted to live this way and part of it was becoming a

person of faith, you know, reizing that there is something greater than what is here, and i could feel it in my body. i hummed with it. and it felt wonderful. and he didn't like that. >> where is that today in your life? >> very present. >> as present as it has ever been? >> yeah. uh-huh. >> did you come to that late? >> 58 years old. >> how did you find -- >> i'm a late bloomenter. >> -- late bloomer. >> it's good to be a late bloomer when you live so long. >> you came to it late because... >> i think that tends to happen to people later in life. i mean i was brght up an atheist. and it took me a lot of time -- e fact also that i lived in georgia. i was exposed to jimmy carter and andy you. i was suppose exposed to people i admired who had faith.

and i would back them into corners. i went to a lot of receptions on the arm of ted, so i had a lot of time to take these people into corners and say, now, explain this to me, what is this all aut. >> the curiosity factor isso there in you. >> but i had a nervo breakdown. i remember i was at the end of my marriage to tom and i was in my living roomn santa monica, and i aually ardyself say out loud, if goofed wants me to suffer this much there's got to be a reason, and it's like -- who said that? god? within ds i heard bill moyers say on television, i think he was quoting his son -- coincidences are god's way of manifesting and coincidences kept happening and then i ended up moving to georgia and meeting people who had something that i was fascinated with and so i went -- i enrolled in the

largest institution that trains african-american ministers, the interdenominational theological seminary. i took this little old white lady there, and nobody knew who i was until i had done monster-in-law and it's like my god, there's the woman who beat up jennifer lopez in our class now. i took it serious and i studied it and i still do. >> when you look at this life, this love, health, sex -- sex? what have you learned about sex? >> well, when you get older there's a lot of changes that go on. and if you choose to continuto be sual, not everyone does and you don't have to but if you do, you have to understand what they are and you have to know how to work with them and negotiate with them so that you can have safe and pleasurable sex. and that's one of the things that is unusual about the book, you know? books that talk about medication and faith and reverence and all

of the other things that this book talks aut don't also talk about lubrications and vibraters and those kinds of things. >> but you do? >> well i want to know. i made a list of the things i want to know. i want to know what are the good videos? what are the right vibrators. i want to know everything. what happens if a man because of the medication he takes has, you know, erectile dysfunction? it's fascinating. >> you are a student. >> i am. >> do you seeimilarities in your -- in the way that you look at life with oprah winfrey? >> i do. i do. i feel a great kinship with her. i really do. >> you both share this sense of curiosity and that let's make the best of our lives. >> also she is a teacher.

she reads a book she likes and buysit and sends it out to everyone she knows. i do that too. >> you're a remarkable woman. >> tha you. coming from you, that's a lot. >> the book is called "prime time." >> on the nextharlie rose, a conversation about tax reform and the actress vera farmiga. her new film is called "higher ground." >> lord help me. i can't feel you. i feel nothing. draw me near, lord, come on. where are you? huh? where are you? i'm going to do this unless you stop me.

>> with me next time. you obviously don't want me there. you're leaving me, aren't you? >> rose: are you manipulated? >> by nature of what i do yeah. i try to manipulate or provoke people into feeling the thoughts, memories,erceptions, so, yes, manipulation. difficulty manipulate marty?

yeah. i wanted to better character, and he appreciated that. >> what did you give her? >> uhm -- hmm. duplicity. >> oh, those kinds of qualities? >> yeah, all of the guys are duplicitous and she was going to be this moral balance. and i don't know, we gave her some foibles. is this what makes acting fun. >> yes. >> that's what you like? being able to add to a character, to take a character off the page and make it into something? >> that's certainly the challenge of it, yeah.

yeah. what's fun about acting and -- the funnest part 0 for me is seeing the after effects of it. i mean because it's a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of job for me. les find truth of themoment here. ♪ ♪ captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> funding for charlie rose has

been funded by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. >> and american express. additional funding provided by these funders: announcer: and by bloomberg, apk information services worldwide. next on "great performances"...

you sprinkle a little fairy dust... sometimes your dreams can come true, especially if you're jackie evancho, the little girl with the big voice. already an overnight sensation, jackie joins legendary producer david foster to perform new and classic songs.