Jane Fonda is namedropping French director René Clément as the one who tried to sleep with her but who she ultimately turned down.
While making an appearance on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, Fonda played “Plead the Fifth” and was asked by host Andy Cohen to “name one man in Hollywood who tried to pick you up once that you turned down.”
“The French director René Clément,” she said without hesitation. “He wanted to go to bed with me because he said that the character had to have an orgasm in the movie and he needed to see what my orgasms were like, but he said it in French and I pretended I didn’t understand.”
The film Fonda was referring to was Joy House which was her first French film that was released in 1964. At the time of production, Clément was 51 and Fonda was 27.
Watch the moment in the video posted below.
This was not the first time that Fonda recalls this experience. Back in 2017, Fonda was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour on CNN where she talked about experiencing sexual harassment on “the very first French film I ever made.”
“That kind of thing goes on and I turned him down. I got the part anyway. He was very nice after that,” she said.