Jodie Foster 1962– B.A. 1984

Her debut before the camera involved partial nudity. At the age of 3, Jodie Foster posed as the bare-bottomed Coppertone child in the widely circulated suntan lotion ad. After work in commercials, tlevision, and film, a brief part in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) led to her main chance: the director cast her as Iris, the 12-year-old prostitute, in Taxi Driver.

She called the role her professional turning point. “It was the first time anyone asked me to create a character that wasn’t myself. 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.”

Foster has hewn to this unorthodox path, winning Oscars in films that address unpleasant social issues (The Accused, about a rape victim, in 1988 and The Silence of the Lambs, a 1991 film opposite Anthony Hopkins in the role of a psychopath). Directing has been another activity, starting with the story of a child prodigy, Little Man Tate.