In retrospect, there may have been a bittersweet note to the whole affair, an ember of his own wedding. On Jan. 4 two-time Oscar-winner Fonda and CNN founder Turner, one of the more prominent power couples of the past decade, became the first celebrity casualties of the new century. In a joint statement, they announced that after eight years of marriage they were separating. "While we continue to be committed to the long-term success of our marriage," said the press release, "we find ourselves at a juncture where we must each take some personal time for ourselves." The news stunned some friends. "They're crazy about each other," one confidante said of the pair. "Everybody who I know who knew them saw a lot of wedded bliss." But to others who know them well, the union of two strong-willed individuals seemed in trouble for some time, and gossip columns rumbled with the rumors. The couple emphatically dismissed such talk. Still, just over a year ago, Turner had matter-of-factly declared at a California awards dinner that he and his wife were seeing a marriage counselor. "Jane wants me to become a saint," he explained to a shocked group. "But I'm not."
Whether there was any darker reason for the split is an open question. Earlier dalliances had torpedoed Turner's first two marriages. (He has two children—Laura Lee, 38, and Robert Edward IV, 36—with first wife Judy Nye, and three kids—Rhett, 34, Beau and Jennie, 30—with second wife Jane Smith.) In talking with friends recently, Fonda, 62, did not raise the fidelity issue, instead explaining that the main sticking point for the couple was her desire to spend more time in Atlanta with her unmarried daughter Vanessa, 31, who gave birth to son Malcolm in May. Turner, 61, who is vice chairman of Time Warner, PEOPLE'S parent company, preferred to maintain his restless schedule, moving among the couple's at least half-dozen homes and making plans for an around-the-world grand tour. "You have two diverse personalities," says Turner pal Robert Wussler, chairman and CEO of US Digital Inc. "It's marvelous they lasted as long as they have."
From the start, Fonda and Turner cut an unlikely, though strikingly glamorous, image. "Now there's a woman I'd like to go out with," Turner reportedly told a colleague after reading a newspaper account of Fonda's divorce in 1990 from second husband Tom Hayden, now a California state legislator. A media magnate by his late 20s, Turner became equally famous for his sailing exploits—in 1977 he won yachting's premiere event, the America's Cup, turning up sloshed at the winner's press conference. It was no surprise, then, that the brash billionaire up and telephoned Fonda, who balked at first. But by the spring of 1990, Turner, carrying his future wife's luggage, was seen giving Fonda a tour of CNN's Atlanta studio. Their mutual attraction was palpable and, to some pals, mystifying. His friends still saw her as the "Hanoi Jane" radical activist of the '60s, while her chums viewed him as a standard-issue right-wing tycoon. But for Fonda and Turner, love was all that was needed to bridge the gaps. "In order for a marriage to work you have to compromise more than you would if you were just living by yourself," Turner told Australia's WHO WEEKLY last October. "With any relationship there are always problems that have to be sorted out."
And in truth they did seem, on closer scrutiny, to have a good deal in common, and not just strong egos and opinions. Long before she met Turner, Fonda had brought her '60s scruffiness to its comely, spandexed end in her bestselling exercise videos, which not so incidentally had netted her a sizable fortune of her own. Meanwhile, Turner exhibited a passion for the environment and other liberal causes. In 1997 he pledged to give $100 million of his fortune annually—now estimated at $6.9 billion—to the United Nations, partly to support women's issues. "When I married Jane, I was really marrying the women's movement," Turner said in 1994. "I'm sure my father—God rest his chauvinistic soul—was rolling around in his grave." The two could also draw on shared pain in their family histories. Both of them had lost parents to suicide. Fonda's mother, Frances Seymour Brokaw, had cut her throat when Jane was 12; Turner's father, Ed, a wealthy but domineering businessman in Atlanta, had shot himself when Ted was 24.
The couple's well-publicized courtship included a joint visit in Moscow with then-Soviet-leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They were married on Dec. 21,1991, Fonda's 54th birthday, in a ceremony that was a model of tasteful restraint, at Turner's 8,100-acre plantation, Avalon, near Tallahassee, Fla. (Their prenuptial agreement was reportedly just as straightforward. At the time of the wedding, Fonda received a chunk of Turner Broadcasting System stock that was then worth $10 million.) Fonda sold her home in L.A. and announced her retirement from the film world. She and Turner took up primary residence in a penthouse apartment in Atlanta and set about decorating the log cabin he had built at their 107,000-acre ranch near Bozeman, Mont.—one of their nine spreads. They went everywhere together, almost always holding hands and seldom shy about smooching in public. She even accompanied Turner on his beloved hunting trips at Avalon.
By all accounts, they complemented each other, Fonda got Turner, long plagued by heavy drinking, to cut back on alcohol" and to begin exercising. (A manic-depressive, Turner began taking lithium in 1985 to control his mood swings.) In an interview with PEOPLE two years ago he heaped praise on his wife and seemed genuinely grateful to have found happiness at last. "I always wanted to have a wife who was my best friend—and Jane is my best friend," he said. "She's got tremendous intellect and she's beautiful, and we are still very passionate. Our marriage is just about everything you could look for in a relationship." One friend recalls talking to Fonda several years ago. "She told me how happy she was to have found Ted," says the friend, "because she had finally found someone she didn't have to take care of."
In recent years the couple had started to lead a somewhat more sedate life, especially when they were home in Atlanta, where they would slip out for quiet dinners at favorite restaurants. Fonda had become active in several causes, most notably her campaign against teen pregnancy. Her determination to strengthen her relationship with documentary filmmaker Vanessa, her daughter with her first husband, French director Roger Vadim, appears to have been building for years. "The few things I regret in my life are not the controversy and the activism," she once said, "but not having put enough time into mothering, wiving, [and] taking care of the inner life." (She also has a son, Troy Garity, 26, and a now-grown adopted daughter with Hayden.)
For the moment, friends are hoping that Fonda and Turner can ultimately patch things up. But given all the pressures, no one could say that was a sure thing. "They love each other a lot," says Donald Trump, something of an expert himself on high-profile breakups, "but when you're never out of the spotlight it's very tough to maintain a relationship. Trust me: I know." Turner pal Robert Wussler believes that, whatever the outcome, both will be okay. "Ted is a man of steel; I think he'll do just fine," says Wussler. "They're both extremely self-reliant...they'll both survive very well."
Bill Hewitt
Gail Wescott in Atlanta, Susan Gray in Washington, D.C., Joseph Harmes in Miami, Jennifer Longley and Elizabeth McNeil in New York City, Lorenzo Benet in Los Angeles and Jane Nicholls in Sydney
- Contributors:
- Gail Wescott,
- Susan Gray,
- Joseph Harmes,
- Jennifer Longley,
- Elizabeth McNeil,
- Lorenzo Benet,
- Jane Nicholls.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
