On her blog, Jane Fonda recalls the story behind the iconic 1970 mugshot of the actress.
En route to an antiwar speaking engagement at a college campus in Ohio, Fonda’s bag was confiscated in the Cleveland airport because of three envelopes containing Fonda’s vitamins for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Authorities arrested her for drug smuggling in what Fonda believes was a smear campaign to hurt her nationwide speaking tour.
My first speech was given at a college in Canada and when I re-entered the US at the Cleveland airport all my luggage was seized and gone through. They discovered a large bag containing little plastic envelopes marked (in red nail polish) ‘B’, ‘L’, ‘D’–signifying breakfast, lunch and dinner- that contained the vitamins I took with each meal. They confiscated that as well as my address book (which was photocopied) and arrested me for drug smuggling. I told them what they were but they said they were getting orders from the White House–that would be the Nixon White House. I think they hoped this “scandal” would cause the college speeches to be canceled and ruin my respectability. I was handcuffed and put in the Cleveland Jail, which is when the mug shot was taken. (I had just finished filming “Klute” so, yes, it was the Klute haircut).
Headlines across the country had the story of me being jailed on suspicion of drug smuggling. I was released on bond and months later, after every pill had been tested in a lab (with taxpayers money!) The charges were dismissed and there were a few paragraphs hidden in the back of papers that they were vitamins, not drugs.
The sensational headlines backfired though, and the college audiences were never less than 2000 and sometimes as large as 10,000.
But the striking mugshot still remains!