>> 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 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. >> 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 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. 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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. 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. 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. >> 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. let's talk movies after the break. 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[ male announcer ] yes, it is. that's the cold truth! 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 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 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 barberella 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 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 rece recent ly and he just exudes it still right now. i think you two should make a movie. >> i do too. >> i wouldn't do barbarello 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 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 andin hab -- and inhabit the character so deeply that it's transformative, that's really, really exciting. i've been fortunate enough to 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 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." i want to come back and talk to you after the break specifically about that and about your father and your extraordinary family. 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[ male announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ 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. 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. 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 woul