Jane Fonda, 88, Stuns in Skintight Dress in First Appearance After Ex-Husband Ted Turner’s Death: Photos

Jane Fonda attended the opening ceremony and La Vénus Electrique (The Electric Venus) screening at the Cannes Film Festival in France on Tuesday, May 12, in her first appearance since ex Ted Turner’s death.

The two-time Oscar winner, 88, sparkled in a spangly, skintight black number and wore a chunky silver necklace with a blue stone.

She wore her silver hair in a curly bob, and her lips were a soft pink shade.

“I believe that cinema has always been an act of resistance, because we tell stories and stories are what make a civilization,” the actress said onstage. “Stories that bring empathy to the marginalized, stories that allow us to feel across difference. Stories that let us see that there is an alternative future that is possible.”

Demi Moore, Dame Joan Collins and Peter Jackson were also on hand for the event.

Fonda and Turner were married for nearly a decade from 1991-2001.

He died at age 87 on Wednesday, May 6, after a long battle with Lewy body dementia.

In an Instagram post dated Thursday, May 7, Fonda remembered their romance.

“MY IMMEDIATE THOUGHTS ABOUT TED,” she began. “He swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate and I’ve never been the same. He needed me. No one had ever let me know they needed me, and this wasn’t your average human being that needed me, this was the creator of CNN, and Turner Classic Movies, who had won the America’s Cup as the world’s greatest sailor. He had a big life, a brilliant mind and a soaring sense of humor.”

She continued, “He could also take care of me. That was new as well. To be needed and cared for simultaneously is transformative. Ted Turner helped me believe in myself. He gave me confidence. I think I did the same for him, but that’s what women are raised to do. Men like Ted aren’t supposed to express need and vulnerability. That was Ted’s greatest strength, I believe.”

Fonda was a true student of her onetime husband, sharing, “He also taught me more than any other person or school classes, mostly about nature and wildlife, hunting and fishing (hunters and fishermen who follow the law are the best environmentalists), but also about business and strategy."

"Ted was supremely strategic," she continued. "It was likely innate, but he studied the Classics in college, knew about the Peleponesian War inside and out and the strategies used by Alexander the Great and even Genghis Khan. And sailing big boats as he did further honed those strategic talents which he then brought into his businesses to much success. He could see around corners for sure.”

Fonda recalled him fondly, adding, “Next to Katharine Hepburn, Ted was the most competitive person I have ever met and that was fascinating to witness. Whether it was who’d made the most ski runs at the end of the day, to acres of land owned (stewarded is the more fitting word for his relationship to land), who had the most billions, how many countries he’d made love to his prior lover in and could I match that, it was challenging. Ted was challenging, but I’ve always been up for a challenge, and with Ted it was almost always worth it.”

The Barbarella actress was also married to Roger Vadim, from 1965-1973, who is the father of her daughter Vanessa Vadim, 56; and Tom Hayden, from 1973-1990, who is the father of her son Troy Garity, 52, and Mary Luana Williams, 58, whom they adopted.

Hayden died in 2016; Roger died of lymphoma in 2000.

Showbiz is in her blood: Fonda is the daughter of the late Oscar winner Henry Fonda, who starred in 12 Angry Men, On Golden Pond and The Grapes of Wrath, and brother of the late Peter Fonda, who starred in Easy Rider.

Peter died of lung cancer in 2019 at the age of 79.

Henry died of heart disease in 1982 at the age of 77.