Finding Your Roots’ Henry Louis Gates Jr. Says Jodie Foster Babysat His Two Daughters but ‘Wouldn’t Take Any Money’ (Exclusive)

Jodie Foster wasn’t just one of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s smartest mentees while he was teaching at Yale—she was also a volunteer nanny for his children.

The Searching for your roots the host talks to PEOPLE in this week’s edition of the two-time Oscar winner, who graduated from Yale in 1985, offered to babysit his daughters Lisa and Maggie while she studied at an Ivy League school.

“She volunteered to babysit, and I said, ‘Okay.’ She wouldn’t take the money,” recalls Gates, who recently made his debut Gospel, four-hour PBS documentary series exploring black spirituality and accompanying special, Live Gospel!

Henry Louis Gates Jr. teaches at Harvard in 1996.

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Gates served as Foster’s senior adviser, describing the hard-working actress, who made five films during college, as a “genius.” For her final thesis, Foster wanted to focus on Toni Morrison, and Gates thought her student would benefit from an interview with Morrison himself, who would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. loved one in 1988 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 before her eventual death at the age of 88 in 2019.

“Toni Morrison was very angry about the interviews, so I called Toni and said that I have a student who is really exceptional,” he recalls, calling the actress by her real name. “I said her name was Alicia Foster because I didn’t want to be dishonest. And she said, ‘Well, if you think she’s that good, I’ll see her.'”

“When she [Jodie] walked in, Toni almost had a heart attack,” he continues, adding, “She wrote a brilliant thesis… Toni told her things – I think it was genius talking to a genius – that Jodie had never told anyone else on the condition not to publish it.”

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Jodie Foster and partner Alexandra Hedison in Park City, Utah in January.

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Foster stayed true to her word, and years later, she and Gates remained very good friends. The Harvard professor still dines with the actress and her partner Alexandra “Alex” Hedison several times a year. Sometimes the couple even visits Gates in Martha’s Vineyard during the summer.

While Foster’s impressive acting career may have eclipsed her academic achievements in the decades since she graduated, Gates is still quick to point out the intellectual prowess of her friend and former mentor.

“There’s Jodie Foster: an expert on African-American literature,” he says. “Who knew, right?”

For more on Henry Louis Gates Jr., pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

Searching for your roots airs Tuesdays at 8:00 PM ET on PBS.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education