Afdera Franchetti (born 8 July 1931) is an Italian

baroness Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

, descended from an old

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family of

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

which intermarried with the

Rothschild family The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...

and who eventually converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Franchetti is known for being the fourth wife of American actor

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics. Born and r ...

Family

The Italian Jewish Franchetti family, from the 18th century, was one of the wealthiest families in the Mediterranean. Afdera Franchetti was the daughter of Baron Raimondo Franchetti, a famous explorer who travelled extensively in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...

and charted hitherto unexplored territories (Dancalia) during the 1920s. On his return from an expedition to Ethiopia, his plane exploded over Cairo in 1935. Raimondo's grandmother was Sara Louise de Rothschild (1834–1924).Fonda family genealogy site
/ref> Her brother, the Baron Raimondo Nanuk Franchetti, was a friend of author

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

, who hunted with him in Caorle Lagoon.

Marriage to Howard Taylor and Henry Fonda

Afdera Franchetti was married to Howard Taylor from 1954 to 1957. They met in Italy on a vacation. Afdera Franchetti was married to Henry Fonda (*1905) from 1957 to 1961; they were introduced to each other by Audrey Hepburn in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

while he was filming ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...

'' with Audrey and Mel Ferrer. Audrey had been struggling with infertility and had sought advice from Afdera's sister, Simba. When she became pregnant straightaway, she felt a certain loyalty to the Franchetti Family. She befriended Afdera, which resulted in her meeting with Henry. Afdera was roughly 25 years old when she married Fonda; his eldest child, Jane, was 18 years old.

Later life

She was once arrested for drug smuggling, as detailed in her autobiography, for one "

joint A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw ...

", which she brought in her luggage for a friend without knowing that possession of this small amount of

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in variou ...

was a serious offence.

References

Sources

*Fonda, Afdera. ''Never Before Noon''
Ghostwriter Clifford Thurlow on the Franchetti autobiographyVideo clip of Franchetti discussing the wedding of Camilla Parker Bowles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Franchetti, Afdera 1931 births Living people Italian nobility Italian emigrants to the United States People from Greater Los Angeles Franchetti family Afdera