While we’re on vacation, I’m rerunning some of my favourite blog posts.
I guess I never did receive a photo from the time I met Jane Fonda because I have looked everywhere and asked everyone I can think of with no luck. But I did meet her and had a delightful chat, backstage after she gave a talk at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, for which I had a front row seat.
The year was 2007. It took some sleuthing to figure that out. I recently found my meet-and-greet pass, dated March 30, no year. Jane and I discussed Greenstone Media, the company she founded with Gloria Steinem, and its foray into all-women talk radio. It launched in September 2006 and folded in August 2007. Therefore, March 2007, it was.
About 20 of us were lucky enough to score these passes. Notice the “no cameras or camera phones” rule? This is why I don’t have a picture! The camera guy who dutifully took down our names and addresses didn’t follow through with sending us what he shot. Twit.
Anyway, GreenStone Media was a spin-off of the Women’s Media Center Jane and friends created two years earlier with a mandate to ensure “women are powerfully and visibly represented in the media”. Telling the stories of women on the radio was a natural extension of that work and Jane even suggested that I send the company a proposal for a show. But after a year they had only signed 11 affiliates and ran out of money. GreenStone was over but Women’s Media Center still thrives.
Jane Fonda was on my pie-in-the-sky bucket list of celebrities I’d like to meet. The list has evolved over the years. For example, it used to include Mutt Lange, former Mr. Shania Twain. (I’ve already met Shania.) The two of them walked right past me backstage at a Nashville Fan Fair event. They were arm in arm and he was giving her a pep talk before she went on stage to perform. I could have bugged them but recognizing the moment, I left them alone and missed my chance. It’s just as well. Mutt went on to have an affair with Shania’s best friend and broke her heart. He’s off the list! That’ll show him. Ahem. I digressed a bit there.
I’ve admired Jane Fonda ever since I can remember and in person, she was as poised, beautiful and regal as you would imagine. She also laughed easily and was warm and friendly. Photographic evidence would have been nice but you can’t have everything.
Originally published April 14, 2016.