Actress Jane Fonda says has cancer

Los Angeles (AFP) – US actress and activist Jane Fonda announced Friday that she has cancer, and has begun chemotherapy.

The 84-year-old Oscar winner, a prominent supporter of the Democratic Party vowed to fight the “very treatable” illness.

“I’ve been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and have started chemo treatments,” she wrote on her verified Instagram account.

“This is a very treatable cancer. 80 percent of people survive, so I feel very lucky. 

“I’m also lucky because I have health insurance and access to the best doctors and treatments.”

Fonda, an avowed environmentalist and social campaigner, said her position was more fortunate than that of many others in her situation.

“Almost every family in America has had to deal with cancer at one time or another and far too many don’t have access to the quality health care I am receiving and this is not right.”

Fonda first appeared on screen in 1960, and scored Academy Awards for best actress for “Klute” (1971) and “Coming Home” (1978).

She has scored five other Oscar nominations in her career, four of them for best actress.

Fonda continues to work, and appears as the voice of an elegant dragon who is the CEO of a luck-making operation in the Apple TV+ animation “Luck”. 

She also stars in the popular, long-running Netflix hit “Grace and Frankie.”