There are millions of toddlers that are photogenic, but how many of them are so remarkably darling that they are featured in a national TV ad campaign? Young Jodie Foster is one such child. As a pigtailed tyke of three, she appeared in her first commercial, a widely circulated pitch for Coppertone suntan lotion.

The youngest of four children, Jodie was born Alicia Christian Foster on November 19th, 1962, in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in a one parent household because her parents were divorced before she was born. Her mother, Brandy, worked for a film producer to make ends meet. Jodie recalls growing up in a culturally, if not monetarily, rich environment. "I come from a really cool family…," she remembers. "We had…really good Tuscan bread. And Portuguese food. And the Pugeot car." Her mother instilled a love for the exotic international cinema in her daughter as well.

Her face became something of a household figure in the 1970's, when Foster was a staple of that era's television shows as well as of such movies as "Freaky Friday", and "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane." She made a noticeable impression on film audiences in 1975, in the Martin Scorsese classic depiction of Inner-city psychopathic isolation. Jodi portrayed - with uncanny believability-an adolescent prostitute in "Taxi Driver" for which she won her first Oscar nomination.

She attended the exclusive Lycee Franais prep school in Los Angeles, graduating as class valedictorian. She delivered her valedictory speech in flawless French, and went to the opposite end of the country to attend the prestigious Yale University. She studied English Literature at Yale, and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She kept a low profile in those years but failed to stay out of the headlines when in March of 1981 an unbalanced fan, John Hinckley Jr., tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, motivated by a desire to impress Foster.

After graduating with honors from Yale, Jodi made several box office flops. However, in 1988 she portrayed a rape victim in Jonathan Kaplan's "The Accused". She earned a Best Actress Oscar for her amazing performance. With her renewed fame she made her directorial debut in "Little Man Tate", (1991) which she also stared in. That same year she scored another hit in the chilling thriller "Silence of The Lambs." She received her second Oscar for her portrayal of Clarice Starling in the film.

1994 brought her another Best Actress Oscar nomination. Her production company, Egg Pictures, released the wonderfully fresh "Nell," co-starring Liam Neisen. She returned behind the camera in 1995 to direct Holly Hunter in "Home for the Holidays."

Foster again delivered a remarkable performance in 1997's "Contact," where she played an astronomer searching for extraterrestrial life. Her most recent endeavor was in "Anna and the King" where she played a proper British schoolteacher.

She currently has six pictures in development at her thriving production company, including a screen adaptation of Margaret Atwood's best selling novel, "Alias Grace".