HAND-PRINTED POEM BY A YOUNG PETER FONDA
California, U.S.A. Manuscript, ca. late 1950s / early 1960s. Single Sheet. Hand-written juvenile poem, printed in block letters by prolific actor and screenwriter Peter Fonda. Fonda, who appeared in stage productions and in dozens of films, became most famous for his work on the 1969 counter-cultural classic “Easy Rider”, co-starring (Director) Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, for which Fonda received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay..
This is a hand-printed ten-line poem, written entirely in capital (block) letters, in dark blue ink on the back of a single sheet of his grandmother's stationery (measuring 7 3/4 in. x 5 3/4 in.) The reverse side of the stationery is engraved in blue "Mrs. Eugene F. Seymour, and her address in Los Angeles, California. Someone (could very well be Peter Fonda himself, but not certain) has printed “Poem by Peter Fonda” in ink.
The poem was discovered in a packet of some other Fonda family correspondence (mostly letters from sibling Jane to her grandmother, dating from the early to mid-sixties.) The printing matches every other located example of Fonda's characteristic block-lettered hand. Given that the address on his grandmother's stationery was pre-zip code, this poem would likely before 1963, placing Fonda in his teens or early twenties when he wrote down his thoughts, attempting to grapple with his considerable personal suffering and the passage of time.
Peter Fonda was born in 1940, New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour, the second Henry's five wives; his older sister is Hollywood actress, activist, and workout maven Jane Fonda…. Frances Ford Seymour committed suicide in a mental hospital when Peter, her youngest, was only ten years old. The following year young Peter accidentally shot himself in the stomach while skeet shooting, almost fatally. Years later while taking the psychedelic LSD with John Lennon and George Harrison, Fonda mentioned the incident, saying, 'I know what it's like to be dead.' This inspired The Beatles' song "She Said She Said”.
This undated, unsigned poem is essentially juvenalia, reflecting upon a pained and troubled childhood, As child of an enormously famous Hollywood icon, Peter was essentially raised by others and beset with loneliness a good bit of the time. In this poem, Peter, the poet, young and unschooled, muses upon his observations of the past, passing, and concludes by clearly stating that the pain of his past will never disappear "until my past/has passed.”
In an interview with Fonda (probably Esquire Magazine's 1968 profile of him entitled "Holden Caufield at 27"), Fonda writes : "Nobody told me the truth about my mother, man. I was ten years old and I didn't understand. I just knew she was dead and I was all alone. I didn't find out how my mother died until I was fifteen. I was sitting in this barber's chair in Rome and I picked up a magazine and read about her doing herself in, in an insane asylum. It blew my mind, man. And nobody to this day has ever told me anything."
Considering this inconceivably devastating revelation of his mother's institutionalization and suicide -- kept secret from the then ten-year old Fonda, the poem presages and perhaps explains the angry young rebel persona which Fonda adopted, and so naturally embodied, both onscreen and off. A scarce piece of ephemera, not so much for its Hollywood connections, but as an emblematic piece of text from the origin story of the lost and sometimes angry generation of the sixties and seventies. Very Good. Item #88777
Peter Fonda was born in 1940, New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour; his older sister is Hollywood actress, activist, and workout maven Jane Fonda....Their mother, the second Henry's five wives, committed suicide in a mental hospital when Peter, her youngest, was ten..."
Peter Fonda wrote in an interview (probably Esquire Magazine's 1968 profile of the actor "Holden Caufield at 27") : "Nobody told me the truth about my mother, man. I was ten years old and I didn't understand. I just knew she was dead and I was all alone. I didn't find out how my mother died until I was fifteen. I was sitting in this barber's chair in Rome and I picked up a magazine and read about her doing herself in {,} in an insane asylum. It blew my mind, man. And nobody to this day has ever told me anything."
Considering this inconceivably devastating revelation about his mother, Frances Ford Seymour, her institutionalization and suicide kept secret from the then ten-year old Fonda, the poem presages and perhaps explains the angry young rebel persona which Fonda adopted, and embodied both onscreen and off.
Price: $1,200.00