Jane, Bree & Me

When I was 16, I saw Bree Daniels. She was a hooker and definitely not happy but to me she was a cosmopolitan woman, and she was living in New York.

I was so impressed that at least I wanted to have the same haircut as her.

Jane Fonda plays Bree Daniels in the thriller "Klute" and she deservedly won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for her performance. I pretty much watched every Jane Fonda movie after "Klute".

Later, I bought the German edition of "Jane Fonda's Workout Book". Being the classic pear-shaped (and not long-legged) type, I have always admired her lanky frame. I liked the book for the many pics, the exercises that I could manage to replicate and the empowering words.

In 1989, when Jane Fonda came to Hamburg to promote her movie "Old Gringo", I jumped at the occasion. I could take a photo! Me! Yes! It turned out that due to the demand, there would only be one photo op (for all) and one press conference. No individual interviews or photos. Now I only do those photo calls when I really have to. Or in this case, when that's all I can get. It was Jane Fonda, after all.

So I found myself in a room of the Hotel Atlantic together with about every other Hamburg photographer, waiting to take the same picture that everyone else would take. Those familiar with the working conditions had brought ladders. So we waited. And waited. We started to take pictures of each other and waited. Then she sailed in, very professionally and slowly turning around and smiling. But something was terribly wrong. Those boobs! Jane Fonda, my former well-proportioned slim workout goddess, was parading in front of my lens with big boobs. Damn that macho moustachio Ted Turner!

Many years later she had them removed but they are still in all my pictures! :( Okay, so those photos were only snapshots anyway but I really really would love to not have those, erm, things in them. And even if I crop the photo, I can still see them, if you know what I mean.

Oh, Jane. Please come back. With your new porcelain knee, you don't have to jog around the Alster twice as you did in 1989. We can walk around the lake once, like I always do. I will not tell the paps so I don't have to push them and their ladders into the water to get my exclusive compensation. We can twitter about it later: #janefonda #proportionfail #corrected #kellerfrau #happy.