'Easy Rider' star, writer Peter Fonda has died at 79

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Award-winning actor Peter Fonda has died at age 79.

His family said in a statement that he died Friday morning at his Los Angeles home surrounded by family. He died of respiratory failure due to lung cancer.

"In one of the saddest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts," the family said.

He won several Golden Globe Awards, including best actor for "Ulee's Gold," and was noted by the same film reviewer group for his work in "The Wild Angels," "The Trip" and "Easy Rider," among numerous other movies.

Born into Hollywood royalty as Henry Fonda's only son, Fonda carved his own path with his nonconformist tendencies and earned Oscar nominations for co-writing "Easy Rider" and acting in "Ulee's Gold."

Fonda was born in New York in 1940 and was only 10 years old when his mother Frances Ford Seymour died. Fonda had an estranged relationship with his father, but said that they grew closer over the years before Henry Fonda died in 1982.

The younger brother of actress Jane Fonda, he also directed movies and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003.

Although Peter never achieved the status of his father or even his older sister Jane Fonda, the impact of "Easy Rider," a psychedelic road trip movie, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, was enough to cement his place in popular culture.

Fonda collaborated with another struggling young actor, Dennis Hopper, on the script about two weed-smoking, drug-slinging bikers on a trip through the Southwest and Deep South.

On the way, Fonda and Hopper befriend a drunken young lawyer — Jack Nicholson in a breakout role — but raise the dander of Southern rednecks and are murdered before they can return home.

Fonda's character Wyatt wore a stars-and-stripes helmet and rode a motorcycle called "Captain America," repurposing traditional images for the counterculture.

Fonda produced "Easy Rider" and Hopper directed it for a meager $380,000. It went on to gross $40 million worldwide, a substantial sum for its time.

The film was a hit at Cannes, netted a best-screenplay Oscar nomination for Fonda, Hopper and Terry Southern, and has since been listed on the American Film Institute's ranking of the top 100 American films. The establishment gave its official blessing in 1998 when "Easy Rider" was included in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

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