Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster (born Alicia Christian Foster, 19.11.1962)

Jodie Foster is an American Oscar-winning actress.

Jodie Foster: Childhood

Jodie Foster was born in Los Angeles, to Evelyn Ella and Lucius Fisher Foster III. Her father was an Air Force veteran of the battle of Britain and later became a real estate broker. He left Jodie's mother before Jodie was born. Evelyn supported Jodie through her work as a film producer.

Jodie's first acting appearances were in television commercials. She then performed on The Doris Day Show, followed by her film debut in Menace on the Mountain, and a string of Disney productions.

In 1976, Foster made her first notable film role, as a 12 year old child prostitute in the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver. Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Cybill Shepherd also star in the film. Foster earned herself a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for the role. The same year, she also appeared as Talulah in Bugsy Malone and starred opposite Martin Sheen in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.

After graduating from the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, Foster attended Yale University, where she graduated with a B.A. in literature. She should have graduated in 1984 but when John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan, Hinckley's fascination with Jodie Foster created a great deal of unwanted media attention and she abandoned her studies for a year.

Jodie Foster: Acting Career

Jodie Foster made a vast number of TV and film appearances even before attending college. Aged 14, she became the youngest star to host Saturday Night Live, though Drew Barrymore took that mantle when she hosted the show at the age of seven.

Jodie Foster made the transition from child to adult actor. However, some of her first post-Taxi Driver films were not a success, such as Foxes, Stealing Home and Five Corners. She went on, though, to win an Academy Award for her role as a rape survivor in The Accused.

Jodie Foster's second Academy Award came for her role as the FBI agent Clarice Starling, in The Silence of the Lambs, playing opposite Anthony Hopkins as the imprisoned cannibal Hannibal Lecter.

Foster's directorial debut came in 1991, when she helmed the acclaimed drama Little Man Tate. Four years later, she directed Home for the Holidays, a dark comedy which starred Helen Hunt and Robert Downey Jr. In 1994, Foster worked as a producer, on Nell, though she later commented that she found it difficult to act in and produce the movie at the same time.

Jodie Foster went on to star alongside Richard Gere in Sommersby and Mel Gibson in 1994's Maverick. This was followed by an appearance opposite Matthew McConaughey in Contact, a sci-fi film based on a Carl Sagen novel.

In 2002, Jodie Foster took the lead role in Panic Room. The role was initially awarded to Nicole Kidman but Kidman was forced to leave the project after suffering an injury. The film was a huge financial success and became Foster's biggest box office hit in terms of opening weeks.

Foster returned to the big screen in 2005's Flightplan. Flightplan was another box office number one. The following year, Jodie Foster and Denzel Washington starred in Spike Lee's thriller Inside Man. Three years later, Foster appeared alongside Terrence Howard in The Brave One, another thriller, this time directed by Neil Jordan.

Jodie Foster: Personal Life

Jodie Foster has been estranged from her elder brother Buddy for several years. In his book, Foster Child, he writes that he had always assumed that his sister is gay, or bisexual.

Jodie herself has always been highly secretive about her sexual orientation. In the past, she dated her Bugsy Malone co-star, Scott Baio and the media has speculated about the fact that Russell Crowe often accompanies Foster to awards ceremonies. Foster has two children, Charles (b. 1998) and Christopher (b.2001) but has never revealed any details about the paternity of the two boys. In 2007, Foster made a dedication to "my beautiful Cydney (Bernard, a film producer), who sticks with me through thick and thin." The comment was assumed to be Foster 'coming out' in public.