The actor Peter Fonda, known for the film Easy Rider, died Friday at age 79. With a last name of legend, Fonda had a career erratic small roles and never fled, nor wanted to, the image of biker free with the that formed in 1969 one of the icons of the sixties and the counterculture in north america.
Fonda passed away Friday morning by respiratory complications in his home in Los Angeles, as a result of a lung cancer. The news was confirmed by his sister, the actress Jane Fonda, in a press release: “one of the saddest moment of our lives, we don’t have words to express the pain in our hearts. After the duel, we hope that you will respect our private life”.
Born in 1940 in New York, was the son of Henry Fonda, The eyes of America, one of the biggest legends of Hollywood. Peter began to act in television after his 22nd birthday and he was doing small roles during the sixties. At the end of this decade, it was getting into the hippie movement and counter-cultural, and appeared in two films of Roger Corman, from whom he learned to make films with no budget.
to The poster of ‘Easy Rider’.
In 1969, along with Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, premiered Easy Rider, a film of colleagues and roadway whose images of freedom come to define the spirit of that year and of his generation. Fonda and Hopper driving their bikes through the desert, with the sun on your face and showered with the song Born to Be Wild was like one of the scenes most recognizable in the history of cinema. Fonda was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay.
Fonda made Easy Rider with 384.000 dollars, “the same thing that had cost him to Roger Corman hell’s angels”, as remembered this year in The Hollywood Reporter. The film was shot in seven weeks between Los Angeles and New Orleans and was a huge success in cinemas. The film marked the way for the independent cinema of the following decade.
for the rest of your life, Fonda cultivated that image by biker-free and counter-cultural california. For a generation there would always be Wyatt, Captain America, climbed on a motorcycle, with sunglasses and a helmet stars and stripes. Gave interviews recalling anecdotes from that shoot during the five decades following. Do not return to a role with some significance to the movie The gold of Ulysses, in 1997. He was nominated for the Oscar as best actor.
The actor prepared a special event for the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Easy Rider. The next 20 of September was to celebrate the anniversary at Radio City Music Hall in New York with a screening at which I was going to be him and they were going to play live John Kay, Steppenwolf and Roger McGuinn, of The Byrds. This year, the actor presented the restored version of the film at the Cannes film Festival, where it received the prize for the best opera prima in 1969.
“Often travel”, said the actor in that presentation, as he recalls to Rolling Stone. “A motel room in Toronto in the 67 to make a noise on the coast of Cannes in the 69. A mad dash for the stairs of the Palais toward the history books of cinema. We Were Looking For America. What we would find today? I don’t think so. Do you really the cagamos? Of course. 50 years after, do we continue shitting? Of course. Enjoy the restored copy. Sing the songs. Laugh. Remember the spirit! Find the love”.
Trailer for ‘Easy rider’.
