American actress and filmmaker Jodie Foster was BOTD in 1962. Born in Los Angeles, she was raised by her mother and her mother’s lesbian partner. After appearing in a TV advertisement at age three, she became a successful child actor. In 1976, aged 12, she turned heads playing a teen prostitute in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver, for which she received an Oscar nomination, finding success in children’s musical Bugsy Malone and the Disney comedy Freaky Friday. She paused her acting career to study literature at Yale University. While a student, she was stalked by an obsessed fan who later attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an effort to impress her. She made an astounding comeback in the 1988 drama The Accused, playing a working-class woman who survives a gang rape and testifies against her attackers, winning the Oscar for best actress. Three years later, she starred in Jonathan Demme’s horror film The Silence of the Lambs, winning a second Oscar for her performance FBI agent Clarice Starling who investigates a woman-skinning serial killer. She made her debut as a director in 1991 with Little Man Tate, a drama about a gifted child, and produced and starred in Nell, playing a feral woman who struggles to adapt to urban life. In the 2000s, she starred in historical drama Anna and the King, thrillers Panic Room and Flightplan, and a neurotic Tiger Mother in Carnage. Her directorial projects include films Flora Plum, The Beaver and Money Monster, and episodes of TV serials The L Word, Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards. In 2023, she earned an Oscar nomination playing lesbian swimming coach Bonnie Stoll in Nyad and headlined the fourth season of TV drama True Detective, winning her first Primetime Emmy. Famously guarded about her personal life, rumours about her sexuality circulated from her teenage years. In 1991, she was outed in an underground poster campaign in New York City, featuring her photo and the caption “Oscar Winner. Yale Graduate. Ex-Disney Moppet. Dyke”. Foster finally acknowledged her sexuality in 2007, and confirmed her relationship with her partner Sydney Bernard in a speech at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, she married her partner Alexandra Hedison. She has two children from her relationship with Bernard.