Legendary actress Jane Fonda knows there are stories going around about her personally, professionally and as a citizen at large -- as a controversial figure from the Vietnam War era.

But so far into her book tour for her new autobiography, she's holding up with the feeding frenzy pretty well.

After all, she should: That's because Fonda revealed the stories herself in the new best-seller "My Life So Far" (Random House), which chronicles, among other things, her relationship with her late father, film legend Henry Fonda; the events surrounding her controversial trip to Hanoi in 1972 and its aftermath; her failed marriages to Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden and Ted Turner; and most recently, her faith as a Christian feminist.

But while some facts about her life have been well chronicled in the press, Fonda for the first time has revealed some deeply personal -- and in some cases, lurid -- details of her life. One in particular surrounds Vadim, the "Barberella" filmmaker who opened up his and Fonda's bed for other women.

Without question, those sorts of revelations have provided a springboard for tabloid fodder, and not surprisingly, there have been intrusive questions flying at her from the gauntlet of interviewers she's encountered on her grueling monthlong book tour of the U.S.

But, as Fonda told me in an @ The Movies interview this week, if all journalists want to talk about is the salacious details in "My Life So Far," then they're missing the point.

"I wrote about those parts of my life for a reason, and the people who read will understand what the reasons are," Fonda said by phone from Dallas. "Reviewers and interviewers might try to sensationalize them, but that's not what I put them in there for and that's not the tone of the book -- I know what's in my heart and why I wrote it, and what it can mean to other people."

In fact, Fonda delves far back into the early years of her life, when she suffered from an emotionally distant relationship with an unlikely person in her father. That relationship, coupled with events like the tragic suicide of her mother when Jane was 12, led to an inferiority complex that took a severe, lifelong toll that, apart from troubled relationships, also brought about things like her 25-year struggle with bulimia.

"I wrote a story about a girl who grew up thinking she wasn't good enough and that she had to perfect in order to please and it developed into a lot of problems -- personally and in terms of relationships," Fonda said. "And in order to tell my story, in a way that would be meaningful to other people, I had to show how far I was able to go to betray myself -- my soul, my heart, my body -- in order to please, and thereby show how far I've come."

While Fonda began writing the book five years ago, she said "My Life So Far" has been a work in progress for quite some time. It just wasn?t until 2000 that she started putting it all down on paper for the world to see.

"The culmination of the book is a lifelong process," Fonda explained to me. "As I say in the book, when I was approaching 60, I went back and reviewed my life and realized that I had a story to tell. I realized that the story had a universal through-line. In spite of the peculiarities of me, the fact that I'm famous, privileged and all of that, doesn't take away from the fact that my story resonates with other people. I am a little surprised, frankly, at how many men are responding to it. That I didn't expect, and it makes me very happy."

While the connection with men is icing on the cake for Fonda, the connection with young women and how they relate to her is obviously what matters most to the two-time Oscar winner.

That's why she's dedicated a great portion of the last decade of her life to the Georgia Campaign to Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, which she founded in 1995. In 2002, she opened the Jane Fonda Center for Reproductive Health in Atlanta, and has taken on films like the upcoming comedy, "Monster-in-Law," to help secure its financial future.

In relation to her center and the book, writing about her life's struggles validates her efforts as the head of the foundation.

"I wrote about my life because it's part of my process -- it has a universality to it," Fonda observed. "I work with young girls -- I know what young girls do in order to please. I know how girls and women betray themselves. In the two weeks that the book has been out, I've gotten plenty of feedback from women and men who have talked about doing the same kinds of the things."

Being on a book tour has put Fonda in direct touch with people, and for the most part, the public events have gone on without a hitch.

But on Tuesday, a Vietnam veteran expressed his anger over her involvement in the war (where, most notably, she was photographed at a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun site) by spitting tobacco juice in her face. The man was arrested, but Fonda declined to press charges.

Such incidents notwithstanding, Fonda isn't afraid to tackle questions about her trip to Hanoi with journalists, with people who attend the book events and, most importantly, with Vietnam veterans. While Fonda has publicly apologized for the photos at the antiaircraft site, she stands by her decision to protest the war.

I talked with Fonda the day before the spitting incident, and clearly the veterans she encountered shortly before our conversation didn?t share the same sentiment as the Kansas City protester. Fonda not only hopes -- she firmly believes -- that those veterans echo the sentiments of most.

"There were four veterans in Dallas Monday who had issued a statement to the press that says, 'The guys who don't forgive don't speak for most veterans,'" Fonda said. "It's a minority (of veterans) who can't get over it."

Fonda added that "the presidents who sent them (the veterans) there have the apologies to make," and that she hopes the veterans who are unwilling to forgive her will at least give her book a chance to get a greater understanding of her actions.

"It's one of the reasons that I wrote it -- so they can see who I am and what was in my heart," Fonda said.