SECTION ONE
PAGE THREE
sm
COLUMN
SIXTY-THREE, SEPTEMBER 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
AMERICA'S
ANSWER TO BARDOT
THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
III.
Her
boyfriend is Andreas Voutsinas, a thirty-year-old Greek who was born in the
Sudan, brought up in Ethiopia, educated in London, and inducted into the
escalating intimacies of New York's theater salons from a cold-water flat on
West 46th Street. Among, the
assorted facts of Jane Fonda's life, he is one of the most important now, and,
although an unwilling member of the rivalry, Henry Fonda has found himself the
victim of it.
"Don't
mention Andreas when you talk to my father," Jane told me, "or that'll
bring the interview to an abrupt end.
"Well,?
said her father," sitting with me in a conversation about his daughter several
nights later, "It won't come to an abrupt end, but we'd have a short
pause until we got to another subject."
Endowed
with the mask of glibness that is so necessary in theater politics and that at
the same time excommunicates him from it, born with a suavity that has all the
flavored age of Europe and that at the same time renders him suspect, articulate
as a talented director has to be, Voutsinas is as plain-spoken about his
relationship with Jane as his immigrant accent will permit him to be.
"Naturally"
he told me while sitting in Jane's apartment one day with his feet between the
tiger and the leopard, "Jane adored her father for so long, naturally it is
hard for him to come to terms with the fact that she also can adore someone
else." Voutsinas had dark, graying hair with the shadow of baldness rising
rapidly beneath it. His face was
rough and masculine but, like his body, it was also thin and drawn. On the wall
was framed photograph of a much more handsome, fuller man. The inscription on
the photograph said:
"If
we became the shadow of each other it was only because we live
above the ground looking at the 'sun'."
The
photograph looked nothing like Voutsinas, but, as I expected it to be, the
photograph was of Voutsinas.
Voutsinas
ran with actresses. For a while,
he'd been Sandra Church's escort. Another
of his good friends was Anne Bancroft, Henry Fonda's counterweight in the stage
production of Two for the Seesaw. When Jane first saw him, he was coming
to Lee Strasberg's acting classes with Susan Strasberg.
"So," Jane says, "I figured he must be important."
Voutsinas
himself says, "Certainly I would not have been interested if she was not
Jane Fonda, but at the same time I wouldn't have been able to be interested in
the way that I feel now if she wasn't what she is beneath that name.
I suppose I am always drawn to people with a great sadness, and you know,
Jane had problems. After I met her
at Lee's, I saw her in a magazine and then I was supposed to assist Arthur
Laurents in Invitation to a March, and I thought that part would be good
for her. And she read for the part,
and she read brilliantly, and then we became friends.
But it was not in the beginning that we became close. It didn't start until a year later."
Henry
Fonda is only one of many who consider Voutsinas to have become Jane's
Svengali, a word they use with both vehemence and frequency.
"I
couldn't talk enough about Jane and the good things that Jane has," her father
said, "but in one area I think she's got a blind spot.
She's going to get hurt."
"He
destroys every friendship," said Arthur Laurents, once a close friend of
Voutsinas. "You just have to
wait and he'll do you in."
One
of her friends who didn't want to be quoted told me: "He's ruining her
career."
And
still another friend said, "You should see the way he yells at her when
they're rehearsing. And she just
looks at him and loves him."
Not the least of the accusations against Voutsinas is that he led Jane to disaster in The
Voutsinas
admits he had fantasies
of becoming
the power behind the throne
Fun Couple, a Broadway comedy that he directed, that starred Jane
and that was laughed off the boards after four performances.
Voutsinas
admits that he had fantasies of becoming what he calls "the power behind
the throne." But on the other hand," he says,
"You
see, no parent likes a change, particularly when that change requires a
responsibility on his part. And I'm hurt, very hurt. His rejection of me hurts
me very badly, so sometimes I punch out by saying things like, 'At least I come
from a family with one marriage." But I don't really mean it that way, and
when I do say things like that, it's just shadow boxing.
"For
example, I used to go over to her father's house with Jane a great deal until
I heard, in a round-about way, that he doesn't approve of me, that he thinks
I'm a bad influence on Jane. You
see, he didn't say it to Jane directly, because this is a very indirect
family. Actually, I think that my relationship with her father is---it's no more
or less than any other relationship between a son-in-law and a father-in-law.
He's jealous or he doesn't like me or I'm not as good as he would like,
but as for me, I can't stand to have my father reject me.
And there is no doubt about it. I
mean I did look to him as a father."
Voutsinas
has directed Jane in summer stock as well as on Broadway. On her demand, he
acted as her drama coach in two of her films, Walk
on the Wild Side and The Chapman Report. For Period of Adjustment, he was barred from
the set.
"Why
don't we get married?" he said. "Well,
we've discussed it, but I wouldn't want to get married until I'm capable of
carrying my own expenses on a level which wouldn't be too uneven for her expenses.
Anyway, for my money, I am married to Jane."
Although
perhaps unaware of it, he already has made his decision to give up his career as
a director to devote himself to Jane. When
he was offered the opportunity to direct another Broadway play next summer, he
turned it down. The reason was that
Jane was scheduled to film a movie in Hollywood at the time and she wanted him
to accompany her. In the midst of a
growing ostracism, Jane doesn't question her loyalty to Voutsinas, even in The
Fun Couple, and she sees no reason why anyone else should.
"I
bumped into her at a party last summer," said Arthur Laurents. "And I said hello to her and she put her hand out.
And then she looked at Andreas and took it back.
And I said "Jane, follow through on the impulse.
If you want to say hello and shake my hand, do.' And she did."
Jane's loyalty to
Voutsinas is obviously the loyalty of a wife. Often
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE ONE OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE TWO OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE FOUR OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE FIVE OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE SIX OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE SEVEN OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE EIGHT OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE NINE OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE TEN OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE ELEVEN OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE TWELVE OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE THIRTEEN OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE FOURTEEN OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO PAGE FIFTEEN OF SECTION ONE---AMERICA'S ANSWER TO BARDOT: THE YOUNG JANE FONDA
CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX OF COLUMN SIXTY-THREE
CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX
OF COLUMNS
The
Blacklisted Journalist can be contacted at P.O.Box 964, Elizabeth, NJ 07208-0964
The Blacklisted Journalist's E-Mail Address:
info@blacklistedjournalist.com
THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST IS A SERVICE MARK OF AL ARONOWITZ