Henry Fonda: Screen Legend’s Cruel Dark Side
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Henry Fonda was a fan favorite during his nearly 50-year Hollywood career, but he kept one huge secret — madcap redhead Lucille Ball was the love of his life!
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The two legends dated as up-and-coming actors, but their passion fizzled after one disastrous party binge. Henry and Lucy had been whooping it up all night, and when he got a good look at Lucy’s heavy stage makeup in the harsh morning light, Henry blurted out: “Yuck!” Years later, referring to Lucy’s husband, Desi Arnaz, and their successful production company, Henry quipped, “If I hadn’t said, ‘Yuck,’ they might have named the studio "Henrylu," not Desilu.’”
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Although Henry was beloved for playing easygoing characters like Tom Joad and Mister Roberts, in real life he was a cheating husband and cold-hearted father, sources say. “Henry Fonda lived a double life, just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!” one Hollywood insider tells The National ENQUIRER. “He could be cold, ruthless and nasty — to his own family members!” The Oscar-winning “On Golden Pond” star, who died at the age of 77 in 1982, was a “brutal and shameless womanizer,” and his split from second wife Frances Brokaw came shortly before her suicide.
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In August 1949, Henry told Frances, the mother of his famous children, Peter and Jane, that he wanted a divorce after 13 “unhappy” years together. A devastated Frances, who’d had nine abortions, was admitted to a New York psychiatric hospital where she slit her throat with a razor several months later at 42. Henry was as tough on Peter and Jane as he was on Frances. “He never really talked to us,” recalled 77-year-old Peter. “There were lots of cold silences at the dinner table. My dad showed his love through anger.”
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Jane claims that her father’s constant criticisms of her figure as a youngster drove her to become bulimic. “My father was obsessed about my weight,” recalls 79-year-old Jane, an Oscar winner for “Klute” and “Coming Home. I was made to feel that I would not be loved unless I was perfect. I feared my father always thought I was fat." “The result was that I had bulimia. I did what we would now call comfort eating and became addicted to food. So I would binge and then purge," added Jane. “It was many years before I could sit at a table without any anxiety.”
Henry Fonda was a fan favorite during his nearly 50-year Hollywood career, but he kept one huge secret — madcap redhead Lucille Ball was the love of his life!
The two legends dated as up-and-coming actors, but their passion fizzled after one disastrous party binge. Henry and Lucy had been whooping it up all night, and when he got a good look at Lucy’s heavy stage makeup in the harsh morning light, Henry blurted out: “Yuck!” Years later, referring to Lucy’s husband, Desi Arnaz, and their successful production company, Henry quipped, “If I hadn’t said, ‘Yuck,’ they might have named the studio "Henrylu," not Desilu.’”
Photo credit: Getty Images
Although Henry was beloved for playing easygoing characters like Tom Joad and Mister Roberts, in real life he was a cheating husband and cold-hearted father, sources say. “Henry Fonda lived a double life, just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!” one Hollywood insider tells The National ENQUIRER. “He could be cold, ruthless and nasty — to his own family members!” The Oscar-winning “On Golden Pond” star, who died at the age of 77 in 1982, was a “brutal and shameless womanizer,” and his split from second wife Frances Brokaw came shortly before her suicide.
Photo credit: Getty Images
In August 1949, Henry told Frances, the mother of his famous children, Peter and Jane, that he wanted a divorce after 13 “unhappy” years together. A devastated Frances, who’d had nine abortions, was admitted to a New York psychiatric hospital where she slit her throat with a razor several months later at 42. Henry was as tough on Peter and Jane as he was on Frances. “He never really talked to us,” recalled 77-year-old Peter. “There were lots of cold silences at the dinner table. My dad showed his love through anger.”
Photo credit: Getty Images
Jane claims that her father’s constant criticisms of her figure as a youngster drove her to become bulimic. “My father was obsessed about my weight,” recalls 79-year-old Jane, an Oscar winner for “Klute” and “Coming Home. I was made to feel that I would not be loved unless I was perfect. I feared my father always thought I was fat." “The result was that I had bulimia. I did what we would now call comfort eating and became addicted to food. So I would binge and then purge," added Jane. “It was many years before I could sit at a table without any anxiety.”
Photo credit: Getty Images
