Jane Fonda has said the late French director René Clément asked to sleep with her during the making of their 1964 thriller Joy House, saying he said he “needed to see what my orgasms were like” before she filmed a sex scene.
Fonda made the allegation on an episode of chat show Watch What Happens Live, when host Andy Cohen asked her to name “one man in Hollywood that tried to pick you up once that you turned down”.
“He wanted to go to bed with me because he said the character had to have an orgasm in the movie and he needed to see what my orgasms were like. He said it in French and I pretended I didn’t understand,” Fonda said.
“I have stories for you, kid, [but] we don’t have time,” she added.
Fonda was 27 years old when she starred in the film opposite Alain Delon and Lola Albright. Clément, one of France’s most prolific film-makers in the 1950s and 1960s, was 51 at the time of the film’s release. He died in 1996 at the age of 82.
When asked who the biggest misogynist in Hollywood was, Fonda replied, “I plead the fifth.”
Fonda’s comments come during a period of intense scrutiny on the French film industry during the Cannes film festival, with some women alleging that the industry continues to perpetuate misogyny and sexual abuse when the #MeToo movement forced a reckoning in other countries.
Johnny Depp film Jeanne du Barry was selected the opening picture of this year’s festival after an ugly legal battle with his ex-wife Amber Heard. While supporters of Depp, who denies Heard’s allegations of abuse, have celebrated the return of the actor, critics have accused Cannes of effectively handing a free pass to an alleged domestic abuser.
Journalist Eve Barlow – reportedly a friend of Heard – launched a social media campaign, #CannesYouNot, which charges the event with “supporting abusers” and posted pictures of Depp alongside images of Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski, both regular Cannes fixtures in previous years.
Earlier this month, Portrait of a Lady on Fire actor Adèle Haenel published an open letter announcing she was leaving the film business, slamming Cannes for being “ready to do anything to defend their rapist chiefs”. In the letter she cited – among others – Polanski, who was convicted of statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, and actor Gérard Depardieu, who has been accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour by 13 women. Depardieu’s lawyers have denied any criminal behaviour.
Haenel previously accused French director Christophe Ruggia of sexually assaulting her when she was 12. Ruggia, who denies the accusations, has been formally put under investigation for “the sexual aggression of a minor”.
Cannes boss Thierry Frémaux rejected Haenel’s claim, telling media: “She didn’t think that when she came to Cannes unless she suffered from a crazy dissonance ... But if you thought that it’s a festival for rapists, you wouldn’t be here listening to me, you would not be complaining that you can’t get tickets to get into screenings.”
