Frances Ford Seymour

Frances Ford Seymour (April 14, 1908 – April 14, 1950) was a Canadian-born American socialite, the second wife of actor Henry Fonda, and the mother of actors Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.

Early life

Born in Brockville, Ontario, Canada, she was a daughter of Eugene Ford Seymour and Sophie Mildred (née Bower; July 13, 1886 – April 15, 1974). Her father, a lawyer, was descended from Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset who was brother to Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour. Among her first cousins was Mary Benjamin Rogers, the first wife of Standard Oil millionaire Henry Huttleston Rogers Jr.

Marriages

On January 10, 1931, she married George Tuttle Brokaw, a millionaire lawyer and sportsman, whose previous marriage, to Clare Boothe Luce, had ended in divorce. They had one child, Frances de Villers Brokaw (October 10, 1931–March 10, 2008, known as "Pan"), who later married Francesco Corrias, and became a painter. By this marriage Frances Ford Brokaw also had a stepdaughter, Ann Clare Brokaw (1924–1944).

A year after George Tuttle Brokaw died, she married actor Henry Fonda on September 16, 1936, at Christ Church, New York City. She had met Fonda at Denham Studios in England on the set of the film Wings of the Morning. The couple had two children, actress Jane (born December 21, 1937) and actor Peter (born February 23, 1940), but their marriage was troubled. According to Peter Fonda, these difficulties later gave him an empathy for the marital problems of actor Dennis Hopper, his co-star in the 1969 film Easy Rider.

Death

Frances Ford Fonda committed suicide by cutting her throat with a razor on her 42nd birthday while she was a patient at Craig House, a sanatorium in Beacon, New York. This suicide came days after Fonda asked her personally for a divorce and left hurt feelings on both sides.