Home
News Archive
Articles
Biography
Filmography
Awards & Nominations
Photographs
Fan Clubs
Links
Discussion Board
View My Guestbook

Sign My Guestbook
Fun Stuff
Celebrity Desktop

Jodie Foster E-Cards
Send Me E-Mail

Jodie Foster: Maverick Mother-To-Be

by Julia Rose
She Australia (May 1998)

Pixie-faced Jodie Foster has always been one of Hollywood's most intriguing stars; so fiercely protective of her privacy that people automatically assume she has something to hide. In a town that thrives on celebrity scandal and gossip, 35-year-old Foster bears the unique distinction of remaining essentially a closed book.

But it is her very reclusiveness, along with her refusal to feed the "curiosity machine," as she calls the gossip press, that has led to some wild speculation. Foster's sexuality has long been a subject of conjecture, with her evident lack of a boyfriend apparent confirmation that she is either bisexual or a lesbian.

Imagine, then, the shock waves that greeted the news of her pregnancy. This is the woman who once openly declared her indifference to motherhood, saying, "If I have kids, I have them. If I don't, I don't." She also poured scorn on her 40-something friends "who desperately want to have children by 50 because, basically, they want someone to love them.

If Foster's revelation that she is expecting a baby came as a surprise, it was nothing compared to the subsequent brouhaha over how the child was conceived. The actress fuelled speculation herself by saying mysteriously in her only public statement on the subject: "I could not be happier. But, no, I am not going to discuss the father, the method or anything of that nature."

The Oscar-winning star of Silence of the Lambs and The Accused added coyly: "I do think that every woman deserves to have a blissful first trimester in peace."

The unmistakable implication is, of course, that Foster turned to artificial insemination to conceive. She has been quoted as telling friends, "I went the in vitro pregnancy route because I could choose exactly the father I wanted. I was looking for a man who's genius level."

The Yale-educated actress is saidn to have chosen a tall, dark-haired and 'strikingly handsome' university scientist with a PhD and IQ of 160, after months of studying sperm donor "biographies" at a Los Angeles clinic.

"I know all about the father's background but I don't know his name," Foster told friends. "I'm not trying to be a snob by trying to have a smart baby. I know it's much easier to go through life if you're an intelligent, curious person."

One un-named friend claimed Foster had tried five times to become pregnant with the help of IVF treatment. "The first four occasions proved to be unsuccessful," the pal said. "She was just starting to get worried when it happened at the end of last year."

Ironically, as Foster retreats ever more into her carefully sealed, newly maternal cocoon, as she awaits her baby's birth (sex willingly unknown) in September, the interest surrounding her private life is bound to intensify.

The bandwagon began, in fact, late last year, when Foster suddenly pulled out of a major movie. She told producers she needed to take a year off for "personal reasons" just weeks before filming was due to start on Double Jeopardy, directed by Australian Bruce Beresford.

It was rumoured at the time that Foster, one of Hollywood's most reliable and professional actors, was suffering either from exhaustion or, worse, some serious illness. It wasn't until about three months later that the world was to learn the real reason for her withdrawal.

While her refusal to identify the father has infuriated many, giving rise to accusations that the man in question has been used like a prize bull, there is growing support for Foster's independent stance. Her announcement that she intends to raise her child alone, "just like I was raised myself," not only confirms the current Hollywood trend for single motherhood -- Madonna being the most high-profile example -- but reflects a wider movement.

In an article headlined, "Stand Up for the Penis," Guardian newspaper columnist Dea Birkett made a controversial point: "Foster refused to be drawn on whether a willy (or john or percy or dick) was involved in the conception of her child-to-be. But the implication is clear that 35-year-old Foster, like thousands of other women, can surely do everything they need to -- from pleasure to procreation -- without one."

Foster has confided to friends that she did not want to commit to a long-term relationship nor did she want "any man telling me how to bring up my children."

"I don't think a father is necessary to raising a happy, healthy baby," she said. "I have lots of male friends who will help, so the child will not lack male role models. I've never had a lasting relationship or wanted to be tied down to marriage. I'm too independent."

Foster, named the most powerful woman in the movie industry in 1994, has also made it clear she has no intention of stopping work, although she doesn't plan to act again until after the baby is born. She is busy producing three movies, The Baby Dance, Waking the Dead and a third film scheduled to start production in the spring -- at about the time her child is due.

Foster, who earns $15 million a film, has always regarded herself a role model for young women, anxious not dispel the image of hard-working, cerebral and non-materialistic. The fact that she has so publicly rejected the idea of paternal involvement in her child's upbringing says more about what drives Foster, however, than any carefully prepared public-relations brief.

The lack of male figures in her life extends as far back as her birth. She never really knew her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Lucius Fisher Foster III, a former Battle of Britain fighter and one of the most highly decorated fliers in the US airforce. She was born after her parents' divorce, conceived on the desk of her father's office after her mother, Evelyn ("Brandy"), had gone to beg him for money to feed her three existing children.

"He offered her cash in exchange for sex," said Foster's brother, Buddy, in his unauthorised book, Foster Child. "She said the act meant nothing to her, and she needed the money to buy food for us."

Foster, who has only met her father "about three times," admits she is still haunted by a sense of loss caused by his absence. "I always say I keep making the same movies over and over again," she has said. "It's a long emotional journey to be able to let go and say goodbye. I know that's a personal thing for me, but in movie roles, I experience things I've never lived. I have had many fathers on screen that I've loved."

Her upbringing in a working-class part of Los Angeles was unconventional, to say the least. She and her three older siblings grew up with "two mothers" -- Brandy and her live-in lover, Josephine Dominguez, known affectionately as Aunt Jo. Although she was christened Alicia Christian, Foster was called Jodie by the family, after Jo D.

Her relationship with her morally righteous, socially ambitious mother has always been complicated and claustrophobic. "I was raised to believe I was the Great White Hope and that I was going to do something important," recalls Jodie, whose first showbiz job was at the age of four, advertising Coppertone suntan lotion. "Maybe that was just dome dumb thing for my mom to do with a little girl back in the '60s. but I believed deep down that I was meant to have some sort of princely path."

In defence of claims that she was pushed into child acting by her aspirational mother, Foster adds: "She [Brandy] never wanted me to feel pressure. If you knew her, you'd know it wasn't child slavery. She is the most important person consistently in my life."

Her estranged brother, Buddy, also a former child actor, gives a different, less romantic version of their childhood in his book, which Foster has dismissed as a "cheap cry for attention and money." He talks of the confrontational "chaos" of their family, dominated by their embittered mother's violent mood swings and moral ranting. "Jodie responded the only way she knew how, by working even harder to be the little girl mother wanted."

When Foster started dating boys in her last year at the prestigious Lycee Francais, she was careful not to bring them home to her highly critical mother. She had a brief flirtation with a young French soldier she met while on holiday in Tahiti at the age of 15, and also had a passionate fling with a professional tennis player. And, at one point, she was tipped to marry British actor Julian Sands, whom she met on the setof the film Siesta.

Buddy Foster is convinced his sister is either gay or bisexual, citing his visit in the early 1980s to her Paris apartment, which she shared with a Los Angeles businesswoman and fashion-accessory designer. "I was surprised that the woman acted so dominant," he said.

I was whispered that Foster had a fling with Kelly McGillis, her co-star in The Accused. They had spent a night together at McGillis's apartment, but Foster said the idea of them being lovers was "hilarious." She had been there simply to comfort a friend who was going through a particularly bad patch.

Then it was rumoured that she was seeing Renee Missel, her co-producer on the film Nell because they were spotted wearing matching bracelets. Foster explained that she had given all the women who had worked on the film the same bracelet -- not just Missel.

Despite the lurid rumors, no ex-girlfriend has come forward to confess to an affair with her -- even though one American newspaper has a standing offer of $US100,000 for any sort of personal information.

Foster's decision to raise a child single-handedly probably has more to do with her own solitary nature than any ingrained aversion to men. "I am a loner, a solitary person," she insists. "I like to spend the day alone. I enjoy eating alone. But I'm not lonely and I never have been."

She has said she only has 10 close friends, including John Hutman, who often designs sets of her movies, producer Randy Stone and X-Files star David Duchovny. She avoids Hollywood parties, shuns mobile phones and prefers to live in an anonymous rented house or hotels rather than her opulent, antique-filled mansion in the San Fernando Valley. The house is ringed by electrified razor wire, motion sensors and lasers.

Foster's dysfunctional childhood, her emotional guardedness and her determination to succeed against the odds, have made her a formidably strong woman -- one who, by her own admission, doesn't need a father for her child.

"I've always wanted my profession to be about connecting with the common person, the normal person, the human person -- because, in some ways, I've been pushed outside that," Foster said in a rare, candid interview about what motivates and propels her.

"I've always not been normal."