When Jodie Foster starred in the Coppertone commercial in 1965, she probably had no idea that this one ad would stick with her for the rest of her life.
When breaking down her career with Vanity Fair in 2018, Foster addressed the Coppertone ad and how she feels about it years later. The former child star explained, “Yes, I was three years old, and I was the Coppertone girl in a Coppertone commercial. It was on a boat in Sacramento, and I was wearing only a bikini.” Unlike the original ad, people on set wanted Foster to wear a bikini top alongside her bikini bottoms, but Foster refused. She said, “I was gonna be made to do things that I didn’t wanna do, like wear a bikini top. I said no and I didn’t have to wear one. There you go.” A three-year-old Foster got her way; if you take a look at the commercial now, you can see that the “Taxi” star didn’t have to wear a top and fit perfectly with the original drawing of the ad.
While many may think that Foster was the inspiration for the logo, the image was created nearly ten years before she starred in the commercial, per Destination Hollywood. Foster just happened to fit the brand perfectly, but believe it or not, she almost didn’t get the gig.
