An exceptionally mature, talented child actor of the 1970s, Jodie Foster successfully made the transition to adult stardom. Initially managed by her divorced mother Brandy, the young Foster was the family's principal breadwinner; gradually she took control of her own career, meticulously shaping her development through a careful selection of projects and expert tailoring of her public image. Her rise from child star to two-time Oscar-winning actress to feature film director is virtually unprecedented and her added status as a producer has made her one of Hollywood's exceedingly few female talents to achieve on such a high level in so many areas.

Foster, who began in TV commercials and regularly appeared on the small screen throughout her adolescence, made several features for Disney before leaving an indelible impression with her controversial performance as the teenage prostitute who inspires Robert De Niro's deranged personal crusade in "Taxi Driver" (1976). She followed that Oscar-nominated performance 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.

Even with her burgeoning career, Foster remained an excellent student, studying literature at Yale and surviving a spate of unwanted publicity surrounding John Hinckley Jr's 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, inspired in part by his obsession with her "Taxi Driver" persona. While in college. Foster continued to act, most notably as a member of an unconventional family in "The Hotel New Hampshire" (1984).

Foster consolidated her reputation with Oscar-winning portrayals of a rape victim in "The Accused" (1988) and a rookie FBI agent in Jonathan Demme's psychological thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). For her directorial debut, "Little Man Tate" (1991), she chose a subject close to home--a child prodigy who is caught in a tug-of-war between his working-class mother (Foster) and a psychologist (Dianne Wiest). While she acquitted herself behind the camera, she did not abandon acting, turning in starring roles in period movies like "Sommersby" (1992), an Americanized "The Return of Martin Guerre" set after the Civil War, and the Western spoof "Maverick" (1994), alongside Mel Gibson. Through her production company, Egg Pictures, Foster developed "Nell" (1994), in which she offered an Oscar-nominated tour de force as a backwoods hermit who speaks in an invented tongue. Her second directorial effort (in which she did not appear) was the ensemble comedy "Home for the Holidays" (1995), about a recently fired woman who returns to her childhood home to celebrate Thanksgiving with her eccentric family. The film received mixed critical reviews, but Foster's sure handling of the actors was postively received. After a three-year absence, she returned before the cameras to essay the role of a scientist convinced that alien life exists in the high-brow "Contact" (1997).