Biography

Actress, director, and producer. Born Alicia Christian Foster, on November 19, 1962, in Los Angeles, California. Foster’s father, Lucian, left the family before she was born; her mother, Evelyn, supported herself and her four children by working for a film producer. Advertising executives for Coppertone suntan lotion “discovered” Foster when she tagged along with her older brother Buddy, a child actor, to one of his auditions. At age three, she became the tow-headed, bare-bottomed “Coppertone girl” in a now-famous ad campaign.
By age eight, Foster had expanded her acting repertoire to include nearly forty commercials, as well as appearances on television shows such as The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Bonanza, and The Partridge Family. By the time she was ten years old, her acting jobs were supporting the entire Foster family. Her feature film debut came in 1972 with the Disney film Napoleon and Samantha. In the next five years, she appeared in no fewer than eleven more films, bringing to each role a precocious intelligence that impressed both critics and filmmakers.

In 1976, Foster made what she has referred to as the film that changed her life--the dark, violent Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese. Foster played Iris, a twelve year-old prostitute befriended by the dangerously unbalanced taxi driver Travis Bickle, played by Robert DeNiro. The role was entirely different from any the fourteen-year-old actress had ever played before. “It was the first time anyone asked me to create a character that wasn’t myself,” Foster told The New York Times Magazine in 1991. “It was the first time I realized that acting wasn’t this hobby you just sort of did, but that there was actually some craft.” Her performance won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Unlike many young actors, Foster, who learned to read at age three, chose not to sacrifice her education to her growing film career. After graduating in 1980 from Los Angeles Lycee Francais (where she delivered the valedictory address in perfect French), she enrolled at Yale University. In March 1981, however, Foster was dragged unwillingly into the international spotlight when John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, stating as his primary motive the desire to impress the nineteen-year-old actress and Yale freshman. Foster was so affected by Hinckley’s actions and the subsequent media frenzy that she published an article in Esquire plaintively entitled “Why Me?” and refused to speak publicly about the incident any further.

Foster graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 1985 with a B.A. in Literature. She made a number of films during and in the few years after college, but none attracted as much attention or won her as much acclaim as Taxi Driver. In 1988, however, Foster finally gained respect as an adult actress--along with an Academy Award--for her portrayal of Sarah Tobias, the working-class victim of a brutal gang rape in The Accused. Her next great performance came three years later in the haunting thriller, The Silence of the Lambs. With darkened hair and a West Virginia twang, Foster played fledgling FBI agent Clarice Starling opposite the mesmerizing Anthony Hopkins as psychologist-cum-serial-killer Hannibal Lecter. At the 1991 Academy Awards, the film won Best Picture, Best Director (Jonathan Demme), Best Actor and Best Actress.

At age twenty-nine, with two Best Actress Oscars and nearly thirty film roles under her belt, Foster had already turned her attention to other aspects of the movie business. Her directorial debut came in 1991 with Little Man Tate, a moderately well-received film about a child prodigy and his protective single mother (played by Foster). In 1992, Polygram Filmed Entertaiment committed to finance three films for Foster’s production company, Egg Pictures. Foster produced and starred in the first of those films, 1994’s Nell; her performance as a woman who lives in the woods and speaks in her own invented language earned her a fourth Oscar nomination.

Over the past several years, Foster directed her second film, 1995’s comedy Home for the Holidays and delivered a Golden Globe-nominated performance as an astronomer looking for extraterrestrial life in 1997’s Contact. Egg Pictures has several pictures in development, all of which Foster has the option to produce, direct, and/or star in. In late 1999, Foster starred in Anna and the King, a remake of the classic story of widowed schoolteacher Anna Leonowens and the King of Siam made famous in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, to mixed reviews. She is set to direct and produce Disney’s Flora Plum, starring Russell Crowe and Claire Danes, but turned down the opportunity to reteam with Anthony Hopkins in Hannibal, the much-awaited sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. She also stepped in for Nicole Kidman in the recent thriller Panic Room (2002).

With her unconventional beauty and fierce intelligence, Foster has emerged as one of America’s most well-respected actors and filmmakers. She reportedly received $15 million for Anna and the King, making her one of only a few actresses to command such an amount.

Foster is known as a fiercely private woman who refuses to reveal too much about her personal life. She has two sons: Charles, born in 1998, and Kit, born in September 2001, and will not identify the father of either child.

Filmography

Tusker (2003) (voice)
Panic Room (2002) .... Meg Altman
74th Annual Academy Awards, The (2002) (TV) .... Presenter: Best Cinematography
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, The (2002) .... Sister Assumpta
Inside the Labyrinth: The Making of 'The Silence of the Lambs' (2001) (V) .... Herself
Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood (2001) (TV) (uncredited) (archive footage) .... Herself
AMC's Film Preservation with Jodie Foster (2000) (TV) .... Host
Directors: Martin Scorsese, The (2000) (V) .... Herself

Anna and the King (1999) .... Anna Leonowens
Three Gorges: The Biggest Dam in the World (1998) (TV) (voice) .... Narrator
... aka Lost Treasures of the Yangtze Valley (1998) (TV) (USA)
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998) (TV) .... Host
Everest: The Death Zone (1998) (TV) .... Narrator
"Celebrity Profile" (1997) TV Series .... Herself
Contact (1997) .... Ellie Arroway
American Film Institute Salute to Martin Scorsese, The (1997) (TV) .... Guest
Nell (1994) .... Nell Kellty
All About Bette (1994) (TV) .... Host
"Century of Women, A" (1994) (mini) TV Series (voice) .... Family Member
Maverick (1994) .... Mrs. Annabelle Bransford
All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever! (1994) (TV) .... Herself
... aka Sesame Street's All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever! (1994) (TV) (USA: complete title)
It Was a Wonderful Life (1993) (voice) .... Narrator
65th Annual Academy Awards, The (1993) (TV) (uncredited) .... Presenter - Best Actor
Sommersby (1993) .... Laurel
Shadows and Fog (1992) .... Prostitute
Little Man Tate (1991) .... Dede Tate
Siskel & Ebert: Actors on Acting (1991) (TV) .... Herself
63rd Annual Academy Awards, The (1991) (TV) (uncredited) .... Presenter - Best Screenplay awards
Silence of the Lambs, The (1991) .... Clarice Starling

Catchfire (1989) .... Anne Benton
... aka Backtrack (1991) (USA: TV title) (director's cut)
... aka Catchfire (1989) (Australia)
... aka Do It the Hard Way (1989)
Rabbit Ears: The Fisherman and His Wife (1989) (V) .... Storyteller
Accused, The (1988) .... Sarah Tobias, Rape Victim
Stealing Home (1988) .... Katie Chandler
Siesta (1987) .... Nancy
Five Corners (1987) .... Linda
Mesmerized (1986) .... Victoria
... aka Shocked (1986)
Sang des autres, Le (1984) .... Hélène
... aka Blood of Others, The (1984) (USA)
Hotel New Hampshire, The (1984) .... Frannie
Svengali (1983) (TV) .... Zoe Alexander
Hollywood's Children (1982) (V)
O'Hara's Wife (1982) .... Barbara O'Hara
Carny (1980) .... Donna
Foxes (1980) .... Jeanie

Candleshoe (1977) .... Casey Brown
Casotto (1977) .... Teresina Fedeli
... aka Beach House (1977) (International: English title)
... aka Beach Hut, The (1977)
... aka In the Beach House (1977)
Moi, fleur bleue (1977) .... Isabelle Tristan, AKA Fleur bleue
... aka Stop Calling Me Baby! (1977)
Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, The (1976) .... Rynn
... aka Petite fille au bout du chemin, La (1977) (France)
Freaky Friday (1976) .... Annabel Andrews
Bugsy Malone (1976) .... Tallulah
Taxi Driver (1976) .... Iris
Echoes of a Summer (1976) .... Deirdre Striden
... aka Last Castle, The (1976)
Secret Life of T.K. Dearing, The (1975) (TV) .... T.K.
"Paper Moon" (1974) TV Series .... Addie Pray
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) .... Audrey
Smile, Jenny, You're Dead (1974) (TV) .... Liberty Cole
... aka Don't Call the Police (1998) (TV) (USA: new title)
... aka Harry-O (1974) (TV)
One Little Indian (1973) .... Martha McIver
Rookie of the Year (1973) (TV) .... Sharon Lee
"Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1973) TV Series .... Elizabeth Henderson
"Addams Family, The" (1973) TV Series (voice) .... Pugsly Addams
Tom Sawyer (1973/I) .... Becky Thatcher
... aka Musical Adaptation of Mark Twain's 'Tom Sawyer', A (1973) (USA: promotional title)
Kansas City Bomber (1972) .... Rita
Napoleon and Samantha (1972) .... Samantha
"Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The" (1972) TV Series (voice) .... Anne Chan
Menace on the Mountain (1970) (TV) .... Suellen McIver