Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster

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Birth name: Alicia Christian Foster
Date of birth: 19 November 1962
Place of birth: Los Angeles, California, USA
Nickname: Jodie
Height: 5′ 3½” (1.61 m)

Famous Quote: “I’ve learned something in the last few years that I really didn’t know about myself as an actor. I basically learned how to stay happy. It’s important for me to be happy working or I feel resentful. I don’t like it. I hate myself. What I know now is that I really need to love the director. I need him to be a good parent. And then I will lie down on the train tracks for him and go to the ends of the earth for him.”

Contact Address and Autograph: Addresses and fan mail information

Jodie Foster
PMK/HBH
700 San Vicente Boulevard, Suite G 910
West Hollywood, CA 90069, USA 

Biography:  Alicia Christian “Jodie” Foster (born November 19, 1962) is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress, director and producer. She has also won two Golden Globes, three BAFTA awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award, making her one of the few people to have won all four major motion picture acting awards. An exceptionally mature, talented child actor of the 1970s who made the transition to adult stardom, Jodie Foster gave perhaps one of filmdom’s most memorable breakthrough roles in “Taxi Driver” (1976), playing an 11-year-old prostitute who is the beneficiary of a deranged vigilante’s (Robert De Niro) unique form of vengeance. 

Initially managed by her divorced mother, Brandy, the young Foster was the family’s principal breadwinner after becoming a star. She gradually took control of her own career, however, meticulously shaping her development through a careful selection of projects and expert tailoring of her public image – which took a hit by proxy, when she was inexplicably linked to would-be-assassin John Hinkley, Jr. after he attempted to kill President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Her rise from child star in “Freaky Friday” (1976) to Oscar-winning actor in “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) to feature film director with “Little Man Tate” (1991) appeared unprecedented in its smooth transition each decade, while her added status as producer on numerous projects made her one of Hollywood’s few female talents who achieved a high level of success in almost all facets of the business.

Although Foster’s first acting appearance was at three years old, her first significant role came in 1976 as an underage prostitute in Taxi Driver, receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1988 for playing a rape survivor in The Accused. In 1991, she starred in The Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling, a gifted FBI trainee, assisting in a hunt for a serial killer. This performance received international acclaim and her second Oscar for Best Actress. Her films and roles have spanned a wide variety of genres, including thrillers, crime, romance, comedy, children’s movies, and science fiction. Popular later films include the box office successes Contact (1997), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005) and Inside Man (2006) and The Brave One (2007).

Foster was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Evelyn ‘Brandy’ Ella (born Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III. Her father, an Air Force colonel turned real estate broker, came from a wealthy background and left his wife before Jodie was born. Foster’s mother supported them by working as a film producer. After appearing as a child in several commercials, Foster made her first credited TV appearance on The Doris Day Show. Her first film role was in the 1970 television movie Menace on the Mountain, which was followed by several Disney productions.

Foster attended a French-speaking prep school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, and graduated in 1980 as the valedictorian. As a teenager, Foster frequently stayed and worked in France, and still speaks the language. She later dubbed herself in the French-language version of several of her films. She then attended Yale University at the same time as Jennifer Beals (Flashdance). Foster began life in a broken household. Her father, Lucius, left the family when her mother, Evelyn (a.k.a. Brandy), was roughly three months pregnant. With the fervent support of her mother, Foster began her acting career at three years old with commercials; most notably baring her buns in a classic ad for Coppertone. In 1969, she made her television debut on an episode of “Mayberry R.F.D.” (CBS, 1968-1971), then had her first feature-length role in the made-for-TV movie, “Menace on the Mountain” (1970). Several inauspicious – though regular – appearances in guest spots on series TV and in several features for Disney, including “One Little Indian” (1973), were followed by a small role in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974), her first – and lesser-known – collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. Two years later, she left an indelible impression with her controversial performance in “Taxi Driver” as the teenage prostitute who inspires Robert De Niro’s deranged personal crusade. She was nominated for her first Academy Award at age 14. Foster earned a B.A. in literature and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She was scheduled to graduate in 1984 but the shooting of then-President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr., in which Hinckley’s fascination with Foster created unwanted adverse publicity for Foster, caused her to take a year-long leave of absence from Yale.

Foster made nearly fifty film and television appearances before she attended college. She began her career at age three as the Coppertone Girl in a television commercial and debuted as a television actress in a 1968 episode of Mayberry R.F.D. In 1969, she appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke, where she was credited as “Jody Foster”. She made her film debut in the 1970 TV movie Menace on the Mountain. Foster made a number of Disney movies, including Napoleon and Samantha (1972), One Little Indian (1973), Freaky Friday (1976), and Candleshoe (1977). She also co-starred with Christopher Connelly in the 1974 TV series version of Paper Moon and alongside Martin Sheen in the 1976 cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. As a teenager, Foster made several appearances on the French pop music circuit as a singer. Commenting on her years as a child actress, which she describes as an “actor’s career”, Foster has said that “it was very clear to me at a young age that I had to fight for my life and that if I didn’t, my life would get gobbled up and taken away from me.”

She hosted Saturday Night Live at age fourteen, making her the youngest person to host at that time until Drew Barrymore hosted at the age of seven. She also said, “I think all of us when we look back on our childhood, we always think of it as somebody else. It’s just a completely different place. But I was lucky to be around in the ’70s and to really be making movies in the ’70s with some great filmmakers the most exciting time, for me, in American Cinema. I learned a lot from some very interesting artists — and I learned a lot about the business at a young age, because, for whatever reason, I was paying attention; so it was kind of invaluable in my career.”

Foster was originally considered for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars, but was unable to pull out of her contract with Disney. She made her debut (and only official) musical recordings in France in 1977: two 7″ singles, “Je T’attends Depuis la Nuit des Temps” b/w “La Vie C’est Chouette” and “When I Looked at Your Face” b/w “La Vie C’est Chouette.” The A-side of the former is sung in French, the A-side of the latter in English. The B-side of both is mostly spoken word and is performed in both French and English. These three recordings were included on the soundtrack to Foster’s 1977 French film Moi, fleur bleue.

At age fourteen, Foster was nominated for the Academy Award For Best Supporting Actress for her role as Iris, an underage prostitute in Martin Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver opposite Robert De Niro. Foster received two BAFTA awards in 1976: Best Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver. Foster followed “Taxi Driver” with appearances in several features, including the uneven gangster musical spoof “Bugsy Malone” (1976) playing Miss Tallulah, a bawdy speakeasy queen; “The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane” (1977), in the title role of a young murderer; and “Carny” (1980) as a teen runaway who joins up with a couple of carnival hustlers. All throughout her still-ripe career, however, Foster remained an excellent student, graduating as class valedictorian from Los Angeles’ lofty Lycée Français in 1980 and going on to study literature at Yale University. 

She managed to survive unwanted publicity when certifiable nutcase John Hinckley Jr. failed in his attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, something he did to somehow impress the young actress. Hinckley was obsessed with Foster after repeated viewings of “Taxi Driver” and moved to New Haven, CT in order to be closer to her while she attended Yale. After slipping notes and poems under her door, and harassing her with phone calls, Hinckley searched for more dramatic ways to attract Foster’s attention – including committing suicide in front of her – before finally settling on shooting the president. Despite the unwanted media attention, Foster remained typically private about the incident, even decades later.

John Hinckley Jr., a deranged fan, became obsessed with her after watching Taxi Driver a number of times, and he stalked her while she attended Yale, sending her love letters to her campus mail box and even talking to her on the phone. On March 30, 1981, he attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan, (shooting and wounding Reagan and three others) and claimed his motive was to impress Foster, then a Yale freshman. The media stormed the Yale campus in April “like a cavalry invasion”, and followed Foster relentlessly. 

In 1982, Foster was called to testify during his trial. After she responded to a question by saying that “I don’t have any relationship with John Hinckley,” Hinckley threw a pen at her and yelled “I’ll get you, Foster!” Hinckley’s obsession inspired a punk rock band to name themselves Jodie Foster’s Army. Another man, Edward Richardson, followed Foster around Yale and planned to shoot her, but decided against it because she “was too pretty”. This all caused intense discomfort to Foster, who has been known to walk out of interviews if Hinckley’s name is even mentioned; in 1991, Foster cancelled an interview with NBC’s Today Show when she was told Hinckley’s name would be mentioned in her introduction. Foster’s only public reactions to this were a press conference afterwards and an article entitled “Why Me?”, which she wrote for Esquire in December 1982. In 1999, she discussed the experience with Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes II.

Unlike other child stars such as Shirley Temple or Tatum O’Neal, Foster successfully made the transition to adult roles, but not without initial difficulty. Several of her post-Taxi Driver works were financially unsuccessful, such as Foxes, The Hotel New Hampshire, Five Corners, and Stealing Home. She had to audition for her role in The Accused. She won the part and the first of her two Golden Globes and Academy Awards as Best Actress for her role as a rape survivor. She earned her second as FBI agent Clarice Starling, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. 

She made her directorial debut in 1991 with Little Man Tate, a critically acclaimed drama about a child prodigy, in which she also co-starred as the child’s mother. She also directed Home for the Holidays (1995), a black comedy starring Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr. In 1992, Foster founded a production company called Egg Pictures in Los Angeles. It primarily produced independent films until it was closed in 2001. Foster said that she did not have the ambition to produce “big mainstream popcorn” movies, and as a child, independent films made her more interested in the movie business than mainstream ones. She began working as a producer in 1994 with the acclaimed Nell, the story of a young woman raised in an isolated place who has to return to civilization. She later commented that it was difficult being an actress and a producer for Nell.

Foster played Laural Sommersby in Sommersby and Annabelle Bransford in the 1994 film Maverick. Sommersby co-star Richard Gere would comment that “She’s very much a close-up actress, because her thoughts are clear.” She returned to acting with the role of a scientist who receives signals that may be from space aliens in “Contact” (1997), a high-minded, reality-rooted sci-fi tale conceived by Carl Sagan and directed by Robert Zemeckis; a film that greatly benefited from Foster’s ability to project intelligence on the big screen. Next was an unconventional choice, “Anna and the King” (1999), a non-musical version of the same true life story that inspired the fabled stage and film production “The King and I.” The film cast Foster as widowed British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens, who engages in a romance with the King of Siam (Chow Yun-Fat) in the 1860s. Well acted and lavishly produced, the film nevertheless failed to be a triumph for Foster. She next appeared in a supporting role as the universally despised Catholic school instructor Sister Assumpta in the clever indie “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys” (2002).
In 1997, she starred alongside Matthew McConaughey in the sci-fi movie Contact, based on the novel by scientist Carl Sagan. She portrayed a scientist searching for extraterrestrial life in the SETI project. She commented on the script that “I have to have some acute personal connection with the material. And that’s pretty hard for me to find.” Contact was also her first science fiction film, and her first experience with a bluescreen. She commented, “Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue. And I was rotated on a lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough.” In 1998, an asteroid, 17744 Jodiefoster, was named in her honor.

In 2002, Foster took over the lead role in David Fincher’s Panic Room after Nicole Kidman was injured during initial filming, the film grossed over 30 million dollars in its opening weekend in the United States, Foster’s biggest box office opening success of her career so far. She then performed in the French-language film Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004), speaking French fluently throughout. Foster returned in the 2005 film Flightplan which opened once again #1 at the U.S. box office and was a world wide hit. Foster portrayed a woman whose daughter disappears on an airplane that her character, an engineer, had helped to design.

In 2006, she appeared in Inside Man, a thriller directed by Spike Lee and co-starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, which opened #1 at the U.S. box office. Her latest film is The Brave One, a thriller which opened once again at #1 at the U.S. box office was filmed in New York City, both in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is directed by Neil Jordan and co-stars Terrence Howard. Commenting on her latest roles, Foster has said that she enjoys appearing in mainstream genre films that have a “real heart to them.” Indeed, many of her most successful films in recent years have been thrillers. Foster next starred in Spike Lee’s impressive genre piece, “Inside Man” (2006), playing a well-connected fixer for the rich and powerful called in to keep quiet the secrets of a bank founder (Christopher Plummer), while his employees are held hostage by a master thief (Clive Owen). Meanwhile, the thief remains constantly one step ahead of a smooth-talking hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) in an effort to pull off the perfect heist. Foster continued her new millennium rebirth with “The Brave One” (2007), a revenge thriller about a New York City radio host who struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a dark journey to seek justice. She ends up creating a media sensation that rivets the city while she battles herself over whether or not her quest for vengeance is truly the right path. 

Foster was set to direct, as well as reunite with actor Robert De Niro, for the film Sugarland. Ultimately the film was shelved indefinitely in 2007. In 2008, Foster starred in Nim’s Island, portraying a reclusive writer who is contacted by a young girl, played by Abigail Breslin. Foster will also star in the biopic Leni Riefenstahl.

Foster has two sisters and a brother, Lucinda “Cindy” Foster (b. 1954), Constance “Connie” Foster (b. 1955), and Lucius “Buddy” Foster (b. 1957). During the filming of both Taxi Driver and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, Connie was her stand-in. Buddy Foster had his own career for several years appearing in regular spots on television shows such as Hondo and Mayberry, R.F.D. Foster and her brother have been estranged for many years. In 1997, he wrote a book entitled Foster Child, which widened the rift; she disagreed with many claims that her brother made in the book.

Foster is intensely private about certain aspects of her personal life, notably her sexual orientation, which has been the subject of speculation. In December 2007, she made headlines when at a breakfast for Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment, she made an acceptance speech in which she paid tribute to longtime companion film producer Cydney Bernard, with whom Foster has lived for 14 years, referring to her as “my beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss.” Some media interpreted this as if Foster had come out.

Foster pulled out of the film Double Jeopardy when she became pregnant, and filmed Panic Room during the first months of her second pregnancy. She has two sons, Charles Bernard Foster (b. 1998) and Kit Bernard Foster (b. 2001); the actress has never identified nor discussed their paternity. Foster is an atheist and does not follow any “traditional religion”, but has “great respect for all religions” and enjoys reading religious texts. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she stated that she and her children celebrate both Christmas and Channukah.

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