Partner Josephine Dominguez Hill
Evelyn Della "Brandy" Almond Foster (September 21, 1928 - May 13, 2019) managed her daughter
Jodie Foster’s career from her
child-prodigy years through two Academy Awards. Jodie Foster won an Oscar for
1989′s “The Accused.” Brandy Foster would remain her daughter’s manager until
her second Oscar, in 1992, for “The Silence of the Lambs.” According to her son Buddy Foster's memoir, "Foster Child" (1997),
she was a lesbian and this fact destroyed her marriage to Lucius Foster. Brandy raised their children with a live-in girlfriend named
Josephine Dominguez Hill (1930–1984).
Her youngest daughter, Alicia Foster, was renamed Jodie Foster after Josephine, who was known as "Jo D".
Evelyn Della Almond was born on 21 Sep 1928 in the Bronx to Josie Almond.
Soon after her birth, she was taken from her mother and raised by Josie's cousin, John Clinton Almond, and his wife Lucy Lefler -- all of them born in Rockford,
Illinois.
In the 1930 Census, Evelyn was listed as John and Lucy's adopted daughter. She
moved to California as a
touring big-band singer and worked briefly for a Hollywood publicist.
She first married Raymond Francis Mazur
in 1945 in Rockford, Winnebago, Illinois, and secondly Lt-Col Lucius Fisher Foster, III,
in
1954 in Tijuana, Mexico.
Evelyn and Lucius had 4 children: Lucinda Courtney Foster, Constance Elizabeth Foster, Lucius Fisher
(Buddy) Foster IV
and Alicia Christian, later known as Jodie Foster. Her youngest daughter, Jodie Foster, was born three years after she divorced Lucius.
In her
30s as a single mother she began managing the career of her third child Bud,
who then went by Buddy and was best known for his regular role in the “Andy
Griffith Show” spinoff, “Mayberry RFD.” Her youngest child, Jodie, would begin
acting in commercials at age 3. She was a demanding and savvy manager for her
daughter, making moves that some questioned like having her play a child
prostitute at age 14 in Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” Brandy Foster had
wanted to get her daughter out of the child-actor rut and it worked. Jodie
Foster got the first of four Oscar nominations and began an elite adult
career. “Evelyn was without a doubt the strongest person her family has ever
met, a champion, a fighter, full of fire and love,” her children’s said. “No
one could beat her style, all five feet tall with naturally ‘cork screw’ hair.
Her family will remember those dimple smiles and big hugs and well placed four
letter words.”
Josephine Dominguez Hill
Josephine Dominguez Hill
and Evelyn Foster
Brandy Foster died peacefully at her Los Angeles home of complications from dementia on
May 13, 2019. She was 90.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
