Bedroom adviser ... Jane Fonda pictured last year.
LONDON: She devoted a chapter of her autobiography to bedroom advice for the over-70s and attributed her own looks, at least in part, to a continued healthy libido.
So it may come as a surprise that Jane Fonda, who became a sex symbol for her starring role in the risque 1960s sci-fi classic Barbarella, has now admitted that her sex life had artificial help - in the form of testosterone. For the first time Fonda has described how she took the male hormone from the age of 70 to boost her sex drive.
The disclosure is likely to raise eyebrows among her fans, not to mention the over-70s who may have been trying to follow her advice. In a magazine interview, Fonda, 73, tells of taking the libido-boosting hormones and advises others to try what is still a controversial treatment.
Jane Fonda as <em>Barbarella</em>. Jane Fonda as Barbarella.
''Here's something I haven't said publicly yet: I discovered testosterone about three years ago, which makes a huge difference if you want to remain sexual and your libido has dropped,'' she says.
But she adds: ''I had to stop because it was giving me acne.
''It's one thing having plastic surgery, but it is quite another to have adolescence acne. That is going too far.''
Fonda devotes 50 pages of her new volume of autobiography, Prime Time, to explain how time need not dampen a couple's ardour, offering ''some suggested readings, videos and sex shops''. She does not, however, suggest libido-boosting hormonal supplements.
The actress, now in a relationship with the music producer Richard Perry - who is four years her junior - once put her enduring good looks down to 10 per cent plastic surgery, 30 per cent genes, 30 per cent lifestyle and 30 per cent ''good sex''.
Telegraph, London