In 1981, an 18-year-old Jodie Foster was on the phone with a man who had been stalking her. 'Oh God, oh seriously, this is really starting to bother me,' she said. 'Do you mind if I hang up?' Months later, that man, John Hinckley Jr, shot President Ronald Reagan in a twisted attempt to win her love.
The obsession began with Martin Scorsese's 1976 film Taxi Driver, in which Foster played Iris, a teenage sex worker. Hinckley, estranged from his family and hooked on Valium, saw himself in the film's disturbed protagonist Travis Bickle and became fixated on Foster. He started dressing like Bickle and keeping a diary.
Foster, meanwhile, had enrolled at Yale University in 1980, wanting a normal life. She was unaware that Hinckley had followed her to Connecticut. He began hand-delivering letters and poems to her doorstep, then started calling her. Foster handed his letters to the dean.
Ignored, Hinckley's obsession grew. In a New Year's Eve 1981 recording, he said: 'Jodie is the only thing that matters now. Anything I might do in 1981 would be solely for Jodie Foster's sake.' He added: 'I think I'd rather just see her not on earth than being with other guys.'
In March 1981, Hinckley wrote Foster a final letter outlining his plan to kill the president. 'Jodie, I would abandon this idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart,' he wrote. 'I've got to do something now to make you understand in no uncertain terms that I am doing all of this for your sake.'
