Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor who had a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics, earning one Academy Award for Best Actor from two nominations.
Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. His film career began to gain momentum with roles such as Bette Davis's fiancé in her Academy Award-winning performance in Jezebel, brother Frank in Jesse James, and the future President in Young Mr. Lincoln, directed by John Ford. His early career peaked with his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films, based on a novel of the same name by Nobel laureate for literature, John Steinbeck.
In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve.