Fonda

Robert S. Hirschfield, 66, a political scientist, professor and author who was the dean of communications at the City University of New York, died of heart failure Friday in New York City. For many years, until his retirement in 1993, he directed CUNY-TV, the City University cable television channel.After his retirement, he became the editorial director of the Earth Times, a newspaper that focuses on economic development, the environment, human rights and population.Barry Matalon, 47, who gained a reputation as Hollywood's "hairdresser to the stars," died Friday in Los Angeles of AIDS-related complications.

Ted Turner has an answer for everything.At least, that's the way it seemed during his press conference with TV critics gathered in Los Angeles for their summer press tour.Why has his Cartoon Network failed to catch on?"Well, first of all, look at the cartoons we bought from the Hanna-Barbera library. You've got Yogi Bear and 'The Jetsons' and 'The Flintstones' and 'The Smurfs' -- they're all decent, sweet, little programs."We don't go to the shoot-'em-up type cartoons that Fox network has with, you know, the Power Rangers.

After some 200 years of women being prisoners to men's notions of beauty, do you know who freed them?Jane Fonda. And she did it with her workout videos.That's one of the suggestions of "A Century of Women" -- the three-night, six-hour special narrated by Fonda, which starts tonight at 8:05 on TBS, the cable channel owned by Fonda's husband, Ted Turner."A Century of Women" is an ambitious and often powerful production, with a virtual who's who lineup of talent talking about the struggles and accomplishments of women in the 20th century.

Ted Turner and Jane Fonda have made a comeback in the Packwood controversy -- this time siding with the 28 women who have accused the senator with sexual harassment.In two checks drawn on their individual accounts, Mr. Turner and Ms. Fonda gave $1,000 each to the legal fund for Bob Packwood's accusers, most of whom worked in his Senate office or on his campaigns."The contribution speaks for itself and is a personal decision," Michael Oglesby, a spokesman for the celebrity couple, said Tuesday.

There's a moment in the soon-to-arrive youth anthem "Bodies, Rest & Motion" when Nick, footloose and fancy-dead, stops at a gas station late at night after a fruitless search for his past (and possibly, therefore, his future) and notices an easy rider on a motorcycle refueling, heavy with purpose.It's a majestic movie moment, because it says so much about generations heading in opposite directions without making much contact. It's made all the more poignant by the fact that one of the things Nick is fleeing is his girlfriend, Beth, who is played by Bridget Fonda, the avatar of "Generation X," that group of disaffected twentysomethings attracting so much media attention of late.

Baltimore's Santa Claus -- a gentle man named John Fonda whose gifts to local artists are too long for any list -- died of heart failure Thursday as his friends prepared to honor his life's work.A master of ceramics who co-founded the annual SoWeBo arts festival near the Hollins Street market, Mr. Fonda died at St. Agnes Hospital. He was 63.A memorial service for Mr. Fonda, a vehement opponent of censorship, will be held at 1:35 p.m. Monday in the square at the foot of Broadway in Fells Point.

Santa Monica -- When how-to video king Stuart Karl firs asked Jane Fonda to make an exercise tape, she was less than enthusiastic."I said, 'No way -- what is it going to do to my film career?' " Ms.Fonda recalled. "I was dragged every step of the way."But eventually she gave in and, 10 years after "Jane Fonda's Workout" made home-video history, it's the film career that is proving dispensable.During a series of interviews to promote her 16th and latest exercise video, "Jane Fonda's Step Aerobic and Abdominal Workout," Ms. Fonda revealed that she's retiring from acting to devote herself to other pursuits, including her flourishing health and fitness empire.

Depending on your taste for family voyeurism, you will find a new cable profile of actor Henry Fonda tonight either mostly satisfying or a disappointment. For the host of "Fonda on Fonda," at 8 o'clock on TNT, is daughter Jane Fonda, who lends an intriguing intimacy to a hugely flattering -- are you surprised? -- portrayal of a star who said he felt he was "pretty restricted to a good old American type."Happily, the kin connection is kept mostly under control until quite late in the hourlong show.

It's billed as a "tribute" and "film retrospective." But "Fonda on Fonda," at 8 and midnight tonight on cable's TNT,is high-wire psychodrama.The show is one hour of Jane Fonda talking about -- or introducing clips of others talking about -- her late father, Henry Fonda. She starts out like a conventional host of a TV retrospective, talking about her father as an actor and what his public persona came to represent. But, by the end of the hour, she is in tears, clearly lost in personal memories.

ATLANTA -- The sign on the elevator that runs from the ground level of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to the third floor, where the auxiliary press box is located for the National League Championship Series, clearly reads "Maximum capacity: 12 Passengers -- Strictly Enforced."And, most of the time that rule is strictly enforced. That is, unless the Braves owner, Ted Turner, and his fiancee, Jane Fonda, want to be the 13th and 14th people to board.So they hopped aboard the elevator around 2:15 p.m., and you guessed it: The elevator stalled, with the former "Mouth of the South," and his fitness queen, adorned in tomahawk earrings and a clingy black jump suit, sweating it out with the huddled masses.