cover image Never Before Noon: An Autobiography

Never Before Noon: An Autobiography

Afdera Fonda. George Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $0 (177pp) ISBN 978-1-55584-026-6

Readers who aren't members of standing in the jet set will need to be told the author's identity: fourth of Henry Fonda's five wives, in a marriage that lasted from 1957 to 1962. (No clue is provided about coauthor Thurlow.) That said, there's little else to be noted about the memoir, other than to suggest its flavor by quoting some of its observations about the Fonda family and other celebrities: stepson Peter was ""rather a bore''; stepdaughter Jane had fat ankles; First Lady Jackie Kennedy ``was the embodiment of Jaws, 200,000 teeth''; Arthur Miller ``had a dimension missing.'' Events are recalled only up to 1976, and Fonda expresses nostalgia for cafe society of the past, bemoaning its ``Nescafe society'' mutation. Numbering herself among ``people of background,'' because of her aristocratic Italian lineage, she apparently doesn't consider her time in the pen for drug smuggling and the resulting three-year probation cause to disqualify her from the canon. Photos. (April 15)