Dodging a barrage of crowd-pleasing insults to her alma mater Yale University, actor Jodie Foster accepted a gold "Pudding Pot" during the Hasty Pudding Theatrical's Woman of the Year celebration yesterday.
"I have a place of honor where my Oscar sits that I think the pot would look good...in my bathroom, right next to the tub," said Foster in a press conference after the ceremony.
The student theatrical group has honored female celebrities with its Woman of the Year parade and award since 1939.
Foster joins recent honorees Diane Keaton (1991), Glenn Close (1990) and Kathleen Turner (1989). The troup will present its Man of the Year award to Michael Douglas next week.
Hasty Pudding officials said they chose Foster in part because of her relative youth. Foster is 29years old.
"She's an incredibly interesting person for college kids to meet since she is so close to our age," said Hasty Pudding Theatrical Vice-President Bart St. Clair '93 before the parade.
During the award presentation, Foster bantered onstage with St. Clair and a tuxedoed Pudding President Richard M. Claflin '92 before an enthusiastic audience.
They began with a trip down memory lane, tracing "Yale helped her learn how to play a diverseset of roles," said Claflin. "Take that tough slutty prostitute in TaxiDriver," said St. Clair. "Or that sort of tough slutty character inHotel New Hampshire," interrupted Claflin. "Or that tough slutty character in BugsyMalone," said St. Clair. Foster received a bachelors degree inliterature from Yale. St. Clair and Claflin described her educationin less than flattering tones, jokingly callingthe New Haven institution a "finishing school." But they congratulated Foster for overcomingher past. "Despite her sketchy post-high schoolacademic career, she made the leap to actress fromchild star," Claflin said. Wearing a light tweed suit and clutching afluorescent bouquet of flowers, Foster admittedher academic sins. Read more in News
