Jodie Foster

Born: 19 November 1962 Birthplace: Los Angeles, California Best Known As: Star of The Silence of the Lambs Name at Birth: Alicia Christian Foster Brainy and beautiful, Foster is a four-time Oscar nominee; she has won twice, for The Accused (1988) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991, with Anthony Hopkins). In the early 1980s she was famous for being the object of obsession of John Hinckley, Jr. In 1981 Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan with a .22 caliber pistol, in an attempt to win Foster's favor. (The shooting echoed events in Foster's 1976 movie Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese.) Having been on TV and in films since she was a toddler, Foster took time off from acting to enroll in Yale, and she graduated in 1985 with a degree in English Literature. She also has appeared in Bugsy Malone (1976), Little Man Tate (1991, her directorial debut), Sommersby (1993, with Richard Gere), Contact (1997), Anna and the King (1999, with Chow Yun-Fat) and The Panic Room (2002).