Jane Fonda’s first workout video is released - April 24th, 1982

On this day in 1982, American actress Jane Fonda released her first exercise video, “Jane Fonda’s Workout.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that powers through history without even breaking a sweat.
I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode we're talking about
the pioneering home video series that taught millions of health

(00:22):
conscious women and a few men how to feel the burn.
The day was April twenty fourth, nineteen eighty two, American
actress Jane Fonda released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout.

(00:45):
Produced during the early days of the home video market,
the sixty dollars VHS tape included two exercise routines, a
fifty five minute advanced workout and a lower intensity thirty
minute session for beginners. Both routines featured Jane Fonda leading
a small group of exercisers through a series of stretches,

(01:07):
leg lifts, and side bends while Peppy's synth heavy eighties
music played in the background. The tape was the first
of its kind, but it certainly wasn't the last, because
while it sold just three thousand copies in its first month,
Jane Fonda's Workout quickly found its audience, and within a
year it it sold more than two hundred thousand copies,

(01:29):
making it the first non theatrical videotape to top the
sales charts. The aerobics video proved to have staying power, too,
as it remained the top selling VHS tape for the
next six years, eventually selling more than seventeen million copies worldwide.
That unprecedented success launched a brand new home fitness industry,

(01:53):
with Fonda herself going on to release some two dozen
additional titles. Fonda's into the fitness space was hardly a
foregone conclusion. As the daughter of acclaimed actor Henry Fonda,
she was essentially Hollywood royalty. After her own breakout performance
in Broadways There Was a Little Girl in nineteen sixty,

(02:15):
Jane Fonda followed in her father's footsteps by making the
leap to the silver screen. She made a name for
herself with a string of romantic comedies, as well as
the lead role in the nineteen sixty eight sci fi
cult classic Barborella. She followed that campy, raunchy performance with
a more serious turn in nineteen sixty nine's They Shoot Horses,

(02:37):
Don't They. She earned her first Oscar nomination for that role,
and then took home the Best Actress Award for Clote
just two years later. Around the same time, Fonda dove
headfirst into political activism, taking an outspoken stance against President
Richard Nixon and the US War in Vietnam. In nineteen

(02:58):
seventy nine, the actress won her second Oscar for the
hal Ashby war drama Coming Home. That same year saw
the release of one of Fonda's most famous films, a
disaster thriller about a nuclear meltdown called The Chinas Intro. Unfortunately,
the actress, a lifelong ballet enthusiast, broke her foot on

(03:19):
set during filming. The injury left her unable to exercise
through dance as she was used to, so she set
out in search of an alternative workout. That letter to
take an aerobics class in Los Angeles run by instructor
Lenny Kasden. The two women hit it off, and by
the fall of nineteen seventy nine they'd opened their own

(03:41):
workout studio in Beverly Hills. It was a risky move
to try to break into the male dominated gym industry,
but with Fonda's star power in Kasden's fitness knowhow, the
studio became an instant hit. At its peak, they welcomed
about two thousand visitors every week, and Fonda her head
himself taught several aerobics classes. The studio's success led to

(04:05):
the release of a tie in book in nineteen eighty one,
Jane Fonda's Workout Book, loaded with exercise routines and wellness
tips for readers to try at home. The book climbed
to number one on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestsellers list,
and it remained there for more than six months. Not
only that, it stayed in the top five for another

(04:27):
year and a half after that, cementing Fonda's new role
as a fitness guru and prompting the New York Times
to create a separate how to list for similar books.
It was the founder of Carl Home Video Stuart Carl,
who saw the potential of a home fitness video based
on the teachings in Fonda's Workout book. He had been

(04:49):
trying to create a market for non theatrical video cassettes
such as home improvement demonstrations, CPR instruction courses, and other
special interest titles, but none of them had been strong sellers.
Then one day, while walking around New York City with
his wife, Debbie. The couple came across a display of
Fonda's workout book in a store window. Debbie remarked that

(05:13):
it would be nice to work out in the privacy
of her own home, rather than having to brave the
crowd at the gym and compete with male bodybuilders for
the use of equipment. The comments sent Carl's mind racing,
and within a few days he was on the phone
with Jane Fonda, pitching the idea of turning her popular
book into a home video. The actress was skeptical at first,

(05:36):
fearing that her involvement in a non theatrical release might
damage her film career. She also wasn't sold on the
idea of home video, and to be fair, most people weren't.
In the early nineteen eighties, you needed a VCR to
play VHS tapes, and at the time only about ten
percent of American families owned one. In the end, it

(05:58):
was money that convinced to take the leap, though it
wasn't her own wallet she was thinking of. She and
her husband, career politician Tom Hayden had recently started a
new left political action committee called the Campaign for Economic
Democracy Fonda was already contributing proceeds from her films to
the organization, but she knew that a fresh revenue stream

(06:21):
from a workout video would go a long way toward
funding its operations. She signed on to the project, and
in early nineteen eighty two, the video went into production
with a budget of fifty thousand dollars. The initial idea
was to shoot it in her Beverly Hill studio, but
because the mirror lined walls made filming difficult, the production

(06:43):
built its own set instead. Although the title attributes the
workout to Jane Fonda, it was actually her partner Lennie Kasten,
who created the routine seen in the video. Fonda's role
was to execute the moves on camera along with a
group of backround round exercisers made up of teachers and
students from her gym. Despite her experience on camera, Fonda

(07:07):
still found the production difficult. She struggled to lead the
class without sounding out of breath, and she had to
remind herself that when giving directions, left and right would
be reversed for the viewer. The other complication was that
the footage had to be shot in continuous twenty five
minute increments, so shooting another take required starting the session

(07:30):
all over again, an exhausting prospect on the third or
fourth go On the thirtieth anniversary of the video in
twenty twelve, Fonda reflected on the amateur nature of the
project and on how those involved never could have guessed
the impact it would have. It was spit and prayer,
she said. Flying by the seat of our tights and

(07:52):
leg warmers. We rehearsed a few days, made some mistakes,
did our own hair and makeup, had one camera, and
figure it was no big deal. Was I wrong? I
don't remember exactly when I realized that, in spite of myself,
this little workout video had given birth to a new industry.

(08:13):
That may sound like hyperbole, but it really isn't when
you consider the glut of home fitness videos that were
soon to follow, including long running series from now famous
instructors such as Richard Simmons and Judy Massett, the creator
of Jazzer Size. Fonda's friendly, high energy approach to fitness

(08:33):
kicked off a nationwide workout movement for women, and in
the process, it also sparked some of the most recognizable
fashion trends of the nineteen eighties, including neons, spandex, leg
warmers and leotards, all of which Fonda had borrowed from
her days in ballet. The outfits in Fonda's videos aren't

(08:53):
as trendy as they used to be, and her workouts
certainly aren't as targeted or as hardcore as many of
the rooms utens you'd find at the gym these days. Still,
many of the moves aren't dissimilar from modern day pilates,
and they'll still get your blood pumping right along with
that charmingly retro music. So before you pony up for

(09:14):
peloton maybe check out Jane Fonda's workout instead. Purists will
want to shrack down a working VCR and tapes, but
for most people, looking up the routines on Amazon or
YouTube will work just as well. And of course, if
you'd prefer to live in the now, you can always
find Fonda on TikTok, where the eighty six year old

(09:34):
actress is still performing leglifts with the best of them.
Feel the burn, indeed, I'm gay blues yay, and hopefully
you now know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with
the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and
Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any

(09:58):
comments or suggestions, feel free to send him my way
by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks
to Kasby Bias for producing the show, and thanks to
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow
for another day in History class