Hayden, Fonda: Will ‘Movement’ Survive the Split?

It was more than a marriage that broke apart when Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda separated in February. Together, they were a movement , a cause, a target. They were two whom we knew as one.

So today, nearly two months after Hayden loaded up his faded Volvo station wagon and drove away from the couple’s Santa Monica home to take up residence in an apartment near Westwood, their many loyal friends and employees, their colorful ragout of enemies and any number of rank-and-file oglers ask: What of this movement, what of these two now?

The short run offers short and incomplete answers. Both Hayden and Fonda can be found in familiar roles these days. She as an actress and exercise industry doyenne, her career possibilities backed up for as far as she can see; he as a state assemblyman with one eye on the Legislature’s daily calendar and the other on the horizon looking for higher office.

“This is typical. At a time like this, you look for whatever normalcy you can in your life,” one longtime associate said.

But this is not another garden variety Hollywood parting. Both are churning, sometimes at the flash point, with feelings of anger and failure and doubt, according to those closest to them.

In the circles in which the two travel, the mood is described as “sad, just sad.”

Says a friend of Fonda: “This is disturbing to a lot of people. We’ve all kind of grown up with them--political people, non-political people, even those who don’t like them. We all look at these things from our own point of view and say, my God, if they can’t make it after all they’ve been through, who can?”

For the long run, the separation raises questions that even Hayden and Fonda cannot yet answer.

A Time of Introspection

What chance for reconciliation? What is the likelihood that their estrangement will grow bitter, forcing friends and political supporters to choose sides? What side would they choose? What will happen to their joint campaign to politicize today’s generation of young Hollywood celebrities? And what of Hayden’s future in public service?

“I’m thinking hard, sorting out my emotions and I don’t feel the need to resolve anything right now,” says Hayden, sprawled in a coffee shop booth, picking at a late-night vegi-burger.

“For now, there are two things I don’t want to give up. Time for my personal life, and that cannot be pushed. And I’m reluctant to give up on any of my legislative work. I feel I’m coming into my prime.”

Hayden is pondering whether to run for the newly established office of California insurance commissioner. A statewide poll found him the favorite among Democrats for the position, which is to be filled in the 1990 election.

Coincidentally, the top layer of his Southern California political staff has moved on to other opportunities, plunging Hayden into a major staff talent search.

Among those Hayden has lost are the chief of his Santa Monica legislative office, the director of his personal political action committee, known as the Hayden Committee, and the executive director of his adjunct grass-roots political organization, Campaign California.

Friends say there is no getting around the conclusion that he is “down” and has embarked on a top-to-bottom evaluation of his life.

Fonda has worn a game face in public but is “just plowing through her days,” according to someone known to have her confidence.

“It would be dishonest to say that every day is joyous but it’s also dishonest to say I’m just plodding along,” Fonda said in an interview from her Jane Fonda Workout office. “I’m somewhat on a roller coaster. Actually, I feel pretty good.”

Few matrimonial calamities in recent memory hit home with such force--stirring up the domains of politics and show business, making Page 1 headlines in everything from this newspaper to the National Enquirer. At least one news columnist found himself mongering gossip; and supermarket tabloids dabbled in political analysis.

But mostly, people were not--and still are not--sure how to handle the private relations between these two extremely public figures who cross so many different worlds--politics, show business, physical fitness, jet set and protest, to name some.

Two questions remain unanswered: Did Hayden leave or was he asked to leave? And why?

The couple have lived up to a pact to keep this to themselves.

“There are a million stories circulating. It’s not like everyone knows the story and they can point fingers,” says a friend well connected in both Hollywood and politics.

Hayden’s Autobiography

Along with talk about how they just grew apart, there is speculation now that in the course of writing his recent autobiography, “Reunion,” Hayden was forced to confront a growing sense that in recent years his life was devoid of change.

“The book had a lot to do with this (breakup),” says one friend. “How can it not affect you when you sit down and analyze the way you are living your life?”

The book chronicles a life full of changes from civil rights activist, anti-war protester, courtroom defendant, from pauper to millionaire, and so on.

Now comes the upheaval, and Hayden is at work writing the epitaph to that romance--a new chapter for the second printing of “Reunion,” due out in late summer. He says it will cover the separation.

Since separating, Fonda and Hayden have appeared only once at the same public function, a pro-choice event at MGM studios in Culver City.

But their son, Troy, 15, has proven a link that keeps them in touch.

“If you realize you are good parents, you know you are good friends and you know you’re not going to lose everything from 16 years, that’s important,” says Hayden.

A less prying line of inquiry goes to the question of Hollywood and politics.

Nowhere were Fonda and Hayden stronger for being together than in their approach to the entertainment community. By personal example and with their group called “Network,” the calloused politician and the Academy Award winner succeeded in drawing Hollywood figures, particularly young ones, into the orbit of liberal activism.

Celebrities on the Hustings

In 1986, three busloads of predominantly young celebrities campaigned up the highway from San Diego to San Francisco on behalf of an anti-toxics ballot proposition. It was said to be the largest mass movement of celebrities behind a political issue since the savings bond drives of World War II.

“Every cause needs leadership and a beacon that people can follow,” says one associate. “I think the Hollywood community has difficulty focusing on things, and Tom and Jane played the role of keeping that political light burning. If they cannot find a way to keep up the enthusiasm, I think the community will lack for leaders.”

Others who have been active in the Hayden-Fonda star search believe that enough of their work has taken root to survive no matter what happens. “The infrastructure will last,” says one.

So what of Hayden’s political career?

There is no understating how much his marriage meant to his politics.

As a celebrity, Fonda added energy and electricity to his routine political appearances, and she opened doors for him into the world of the rich and famous. She helped finance his political campaigns. Her exercise business provided millions of dollars to build and support his grass-roots organization, first called the Campaign for Economic Democracy and now renamed Campaign California.

Community property laws being what they are, Hayden is sure to emerge from any divorce a wealthy man, to the extent that is a concern. He has established a small-donor base of political contributors.

Strength of Connections

But it remains to be seen whether he is well enough connected on his own in the Hollywood-liberal circuit to keep the campaign dollars flowing unencumbered by special interests. This has always given Hayden special political freedom. But one friend worries, “The thing you don’t want to do is cross someone as powerful and important in Hollywood as Jane Fonda.”

As chairman of the Assembly Labor Committee and of a higher education subcommittee, Hayden has staked out one of his busiest years ever in the Legislature. He is likewise determined to assist California Democratic Party Chairman Edmund G. Brown Jr. in trying to expand the voter base for Democrats. And he is never far from the debate over where Democrats should go in order to win the presidency.

But those closest to him, those dependent on him for their own futures, believe there is deeper turmoil below.

Political Speculation

A few think Hayden is so preoccupied with his personal life and that the breakup has taken such an emotional toll, that he will be of no mind to risk his political career in a 1990 run for insurance commissioner. But just as many guess otherwise, that he will emerge with fresh determination not to sit still.

Back at the coffee shop, the hour grows late and Hayden struggles with the question himself.

“People must empathize with the fact that we all need time for ourselves now and again. If people will allow me the time, and I know they will, and not think of it as more than one of those painful times we all go through, then” he says, pausing, “. . . then I’ll be there. Yes, more than ever.”

And what of Jane Fonda and politics?

“I was a political woman before I met Tom. I think I will be a political woman the rest of my life. . . . I am much more interested in issues than in candidates.”