1970: Jane Fonda Arrives In Handcuffs

Here was the Hollywood star— in Cleveland and in handcuffs. Fresh off filming Klute, Jane Fonda flew into Cleveland from Canada the morning of Nov. 3 to speak out against the Vietnam War at Bowling Green State University. When questioned by customs officers, Fonda got into a tussle with police, the officers claimed. Then police found what they said were drugs in her luggage. Fonda called them vitamins. “I told them what they were, but they said they were getting orders from the White House,” Fonda wrote on her website in 2009. “That would be the Nixon White House.” Fonda, escorted by a cigar-chomping officer, was booked into county jail and then city jail. At the second stop, a camera captured her, fist raised, hair rough-cut in Klute-style in an iconic mug shot. She was arraigned the next day, drawing cameras and crowds. “As the actress left, a deputy sheriff held his fist aloft and said: ‘Right on, doll!’ ” The Plain Dealer reported. “Strapped to his wrist was a Spiro T. Agnew wristwatch.” The trumped-up charges turned out to be gold-lettering-on-a-building-level of embellished. Lab testing and an investigation showed the suspected drugs were legally prescribed pills and vitamins. The assault charges were dropped for insufficient evidence. Fonda, 80, continues her activism to this day.