Published by
BANG Showbiz English

Jane Fonda made her famous workout video with “no money”.

The 84-year-old star released ‘Jane Fonda’s Workout’ on VHS 40 years ago and she admitted the exercise class was filmed on “spit and a prayer” so she was stunned by just how successful it went on to be.

She said: “I mean, we spent no money on it. I wrote the script myself on a hotel-room floor. We did our own makeup. It was spit and a prayer.

“Eventually the video came out, and of course it remains the number one selling home video of all time. Nobody’s ever broken that record!”

The ‘Grace and Frankie’ initially rejected multiple approaches for the video because she “didn’t even know” what a VCR was at the time.

She told Vogue: “I know that the world is full of women who can’t afford to go to a gym or feel self-conscious about being in a gym or can’t go to a gym because they have a young child. So doing it in the privacy of their home was an answer for that.

“I’d like to claim that I’m a brilliant, strategic businesswoman. If people wanted it, I didn’t know it, [but] I provided it and at a time, it was just perfect.

“[Founder of Karl Video Corp.] Stuart Karl’s wife read my first workout book and said to her husband, ‘This could be a video.’

“He was sort of the king of home videos, which didn’t mean much at the time because nobody had a VCR. I didn’t even know what a VCR was. Literally nobody I knew had a VCR. He made the first do-it-yourself home-improvement videos.

“So he came to me and pitched the idea of doing a workout video. I said no. I just didn’t get it.

“But then the money was going to a political organisation that my then-husband, Tom Hayden, and I had founded called the Campaign for Economic Democracy. Stuart Karl kept coming back and kept coming back.

“Finally, I realised maybe this could make money. So I said, ‘Okay, let’s try it.’ “