Henry Fonda, born in 1905, had a strong presence on TV; in addition to his big screen movie roles and stints on Broadway, the versatile actor played in movies and miniseries on the small screen.
His TV credits include “The Deputy,” which he co-produced and starred in in 1959, “Red Pony” in 1973, “Clarence Darrow” in 1975, and “Captains and Kings” in 1977.
In “The Deputy” Fonda played U.S. Marshal Simon Fry who attempts to maintain law and order in Silver City, Arizona, in the 1880s.
In “Red Pony” Fonda took on the role of father to a 10-year-old son who is attached to a red pony. The movie was based on a novel by John Steinbeck.
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“Stranger on the Run” in 1968 was Fonda’s first TV movie role. He plays a drifter accused of a murder he didn’t commit, and ends up in the desert with an unrelenting sheriff and a posse on his heels. Fonda continued working on TV throughout the 1970s, playing a Los Angeles sergeant and family patriarch in “The Smith Family” (1972).
In the 1976 movie “Collision Course,” Fonda plays Gen. Douglas MacArthur against E.G. Marshall’s President Harry S. Truman. The TV movie focuses on the clash between two historical figures during the Korean War.
He also played Clarence Earl Gideon in 1980s “Gideon’s Trumpet, a man who was accused of a crime but couldn’t afford legal counsel. This was one of Fonda’s last TV roles, and one that earned him an Emmy Award nomination.
Other TV roles and movies in later life include “Roots: The Next Generations” which aired in 1979; it was a follow-up to Alex Haley’s “Roots: The Saga of an America Family,” which was broadcast in 1977.
“Summer Solstice was Fonda’s last TV movie — Fonda and Myrna Loy played a couple who been married for 50 years.
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