You’d still ‘Scuttle’ Jane Fonda…even at 73

She may be 73, but Jane Fonda is looking…and feeling…as good as a woman a third of her age.

A photograph of the actress and fitness guru in the new issue of Bazaar magazine shows her looking stunning in a slinky black dress complete with sheer panels with polka dot detail. 

The actress tells the publication that she has learned to love herself after a long battle with bulimia and issues with her self image.

‘I wasn’t very happy from, I would say, puberty to 50’ she admits.  ‘It took me a long time. It was in my 40s, and if you suffer from bulimia, the older you get, the worse it gets.

‘It takes longer to recover from a bout. I had a career, I was winning awards, I was supporting nonprofits, I had a family, she adds, referring to her children Vanessa Vadim and Troy Garity.

She eventually stopped and instead turned to exercise. ‘I don’t do lunges, though, because I have a fake knee and a fake hip,’ says Jane, who is promoting her new new self help book Prime Time.

Despite her incredible figure, which she recently showed off to wide admiration at the Cannes Film Festival, the star reveals she has long battled with her own self image, partly due to her relationship with her father, actor Henry Fonda.

‘I was raised in the ’50s,’ she explains. ‘I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly.

‘He was a good man, and I was mad for him, but he sent messages to me that fathers should not send: Unless you look perfect, you’re not going to be loved.’

Now the actress is not letting her age get in the way of vanity.

‘I’m vain,’ she says. ‘My arms are thin, but I’m vain about loose flesh. And so I’m careful that what I wear will show off my best parts, which are my waist and my butt.’

But she is conscious of not trying to dress too young for her age.

‘I have people in my life who will say, “Honey, you’re trying too hard,” she says. ‘I like being saucy, but I’m 73 and a half. I’m still trying to find my way between matronly and coltishness.’

The star, who is a notable political activist, has earned two Academy Awards during her long career which has seen her star in film hits including Barbarella and Klute.

She has been married three times, first to director Roger Vadim, before marrying political activist Tom Hayden and then media mogul Ted Turner, who she divorced in 2001.

‘When I was researching myself, I wondered, is there a “there” there?’ she admits to the magazine when asked about researching her book.  ‘Or am I just a hollow person who gets filled up by whatever man I’m with?

‘My problem is always with men – you know, pleasing a man, turning myself into a pretzel to be who the man I’m with wants me to be,’ says Jane, who is now dating music producer Richard Perry.

‘I’m not saying that that’s gone away 100 percent, but maybe 90 percent, 95 percent even.’

The actress also has some words of advice for Lindsay Lohan who she worked alongside on 2007 film Georgia Rule.

‘I have nothing but compassion for her. I don’t think she has ever experienced a chaos-free life,’ she says.

by Harry Harper

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