At the age of 79, American actor Peter Fonda, nominated for an Oscar, played a motorcycle driver in the 1969 film Easy Rider and expressed the spirit of the culture of emancipation.
Fonda, the son of the late actor Henry Fonda, and the brother of star Jane Fonda, died at his home in Los Angeles due to respiratory failure from lung cancer, according to a family statement.
"It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Peter Fonda," said the family of the late actor.
“In one of the saddest moments in our lives, we can't find the right words to express the pain in our hearts. We are saddened, we ask you to respect our privacy ».
Fonda played Wyatt in the movie Easy Rider in front of the late Dennis Hopper, who played Billy and directed the film.
In this film, Wyatt and Billy set off on their motorcycles to discover the United States, embark on a number of adventures, and befriend a lawyer who acted as actor Jack Nicholson, before they died in violence.
Easy Rider, in which Fonda co-wrote the script, helped usher in a period known as the New Hollywood era in film directing, which often avoided happy endings and other norms of the Hollywood production studio system.
Fonda was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the scenario of the film "Easy Rider", and continued to provide films and series at a steady pace during the following decades, and achieved another great success in his career in 1997 when he was nominated for the Academy Award for best actor for the role of beekeepers, which he presented in the drama film « Ulysses Gold ».
Peter Fonda was planning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Easy Rider in New York next month at a ceremony with musicians to perform the film's soundtrack.
Jin: Very sad
"I'm very sad," said Jane Fonda, sister of the late artist Peter Fonda. "We've had a good time in recent days. He died laughing. ”
Peter Fonda began his career as a theater actor on Broadway in his hometown of New York. He was an environmental activist and co-producer of The Big Fix in 2012, which focused on the explosion of the Depot Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, part of BP and its aftermath.