Actress Jodie Foster earned a reputation as a precocious, complicated preteen in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and went on to prove herself as a no-nonsense actress/producer/director in the 1990s. When, in 1981, the tabloid spotlight unexpectedly hit her following John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, she displayed a grace and reserve to the media that reinforced her status as an intelligent woman. Having won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, Foster has established herself as one of Hollywood's most powerful women and one of the few female stars able to guarantee astronomical box-office receipts in the increasingly important global market.

Jodie Foster

In 1962, Alicia Christian Foster was born the youngest of four siblings in Los Angeles, California. She was tightly bonded to her mother, Evelyn "Brandy" Foster, in part because her father had abandoned the family before she was...