LOS ANGELES — Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster will sink her hands and feet into cement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in April as part of the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival, organizers announced Tuesday.
Foster will receive the coveted Hollywood honor on April 19, the second day of the four-day festival, which will feature classic film screenings at the Chinese Theatre complex and the Egyptian Theater, both on Hollywood Boulevard. Among the films set to be screened are Foster’s classic “The Silence of the Lambs,” which she will introduce in person.
“The truth is Jodie Foster deserves a hand and footprint ceremony solely for her work in 1976 alone — films she made when she was 13 years old — ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Bugsy Malone,’ ‘Freaky Friday’ and ‘The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.’ You could see her range already,” Ben Mankiewicz, TCM anchor and official host of the TCM Classic Film Festival, said in a statement. “Nearly 50 years later, we have an answer to this question: `What is a Jodie Foster character?’ The answer is: There is nothing she can’t play.”
Born Alicia Christian Foster on Nov. 19, 1962, Foster began her career as a child, playing the Coppertone girl in a commercial for the sunscreen.
Foster made her television debut in a 1968 episode of the CBS rural comedy “Mayberry R.F.D.” She later appeared on such late-1960s and early- 1970s series as “Julia,” “Nanny and the Professor,” “Adam-12,” “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” “My Three Sons” and “The Partridge Family.”
Foster made her film debut as Samantha in the 1972 Disney adventure drama “Napoleon and Samantha.” Her other early films included “Kansas City Bomber,” “Tom Sawyer” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
Foster received her first Oscar nomination in 1977 for her portrayal of a teenage prostitute in “Taxi Driver.”
Foster enrolled in Yale in 1980, continuing to act during her summer vacations, appearing in “O’Hara’s Wife,” “The Hotel New Hampshire” and the French film, “The Blood of Others.”
Foster graduated from Yale in 1985 with a literature degree. She received best actress Oscars in 1989 for her portrayal of a rape victim in “The Accused” and in 1992 for her role as FBI trainee Clarice Starling in “The Silence of The Lambs.”
Foster also received a best actress Oscar nomination in 1995 for “Nell,” in which she played the title role of a woman who grew up isolated in the Appalachian Mountains. She is nominated for a supporting actress Oscar this year for her work opposite Annette Bening in “Nyad.”
Foster began her film directing career with the 1991 drama “Little Man Tate.” She also directed “Home for the Holidays” and “The Beaver.”
Foster received an outstanding directing for a comedy series Emmy nomination in 2014 for “Orange is the New Black.”
Foster will be the 11th star to receive the hand-and-footprint treatment at the Chinese Theatre in conjunction with the TCM Classic Film Festival. Lily Tomlin was so honored last year, with previous honorees including Jerry Lewis, Christopher Plummer, Francis Ford Coppola, Carl and Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal and Cicely Tyson.