Never Before Noon: An Autobiography [Hardcover]

Afdera Fonda (Author), Clifford Thurlow (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who aren't members of standing in the jet set will need to be told the author's identity: fourth of Henry Fonda's five wives, in a marriage that lasted from 1957 to 1962. (No clue is provided about coauthor Thurlow.) That said, there's little else to be noted about the memoir, other than to suggest its flavor by quoting some of its observations about the Fonda family and other celebrities: stepson Peter was "rather a bore"; stepdaughter Jane had fat ankles; First Lady Jackie Kennedy "was the embodiment of Jaws, 200,000 teeth"; Arthur Miller "had a dimension missing." Events are recalled only up to 1976, and Fonda expresses nostalgia for cafe society of the past, bemoaning its "Nescafe society" mutation. Numbering herself among "people of background," because of her aristocratic Italian lineage, she apparently doesn't consider her time in the pen for drug smuggling and the resulting three-year probation cause to disqualify her from the canon. Photos. (April
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 177 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st American edition (June 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555840264
• ISBN-13: 978-1555840266
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,018,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming & Outrageous, May 26, 2011

By 

Larry Roland Taylor "Larry Roland Taylor" (Cornwall) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Never Before Noon: An Autobiography (Hardcover)

I once once seated at a dinner party in London next to Afdera Fonda. A young man across the table introduced himself as Prince something something Bourbon "a member of the Portuguese Royal Family." Afdera told him she knew every member of the Portuguese Royal Family and he was most certainly not one of them. He sat in silence for the rest of the evening. No one challenged Afdera, because if anyone would know such a thing, it was her.

The daughter of a Rothschild mother and Baron Franchetti, the Italian explorer, a favorite of Mussolini, she was named Afdera after a live volcano he explored in Ethiopia. And a wonderful choice, too. Afdera, as we see through the pages of this exquisite little memoir, is fiery, funny, outrageous and charming - a Holly Golightly of the upper classes. She married Henry Fonda, his 4th marriage, at 26 and was stepmother to Jane, then 19. Needless to say, she taught Jane everything.

Afdera had affairs with Jack Kennedy, Hemingway and discovered when Truman Capote walked in on her while naked in the bath that she shared the same body creams with the diminutive writer. "Great minds,' she said. "No, Afdera, great bodies." This is a lovely book and well worth digging out.