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Jodie Foster has finally come out as a lesbian to pay tribute to her girlfriend of 14 years.
The fiercely-private actress has always resolutely refused to discuss her sexuality.
But after winning an award at a Women in Entertainment breakfast, she broke her taboo to thank "my beautiful Cydney".
Her emotional speech brought tears to the eyes of some of her audience at the Beverly Hills Hotel, revealing a vulnerable side to a star who has long resisted calls from gay rights activists to clarify her personal life.
Miss Foster, 44, a double Oscar winner, praised her film producer partner Cydney Bernard "who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss".
The couple met on the set of the film Sommersby in 1993 and are raising two sons, Charles, nine, and Kit, six, at their Malibu home.
Although she gave birth to both boys, Miss Foster has never revealed the identity of the father or the circumstances of their conception.
As with most questions about her personal life, the actress has refused to comment on gossip that the father was an old university friend from Yale, who is also gay.
Accepting the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, she offered an insight into the insecurities that haunt her.
"I feel fragile, unsure, struggling to figure it all out, trying to get there even though I'm not sure where there is," she said.
"I've been working in this business for 42 years and there's no way you can do that and not be as nutty as a fruitcake."
The motives behind Miss Foster's decision to go public were the subject of feverish speculation last night.
One theory was that she is forging a new career off camera as a director and producer and feels less pressure to compromise to the conservative demands of Middle America.
Earlier this year the leading U.S. gay magazine Out carried her photo on the cover with the headline, The glass closet: Why the stars won't come out and play.
Critics have suggested she feared her career could suffer if she spoke about her personal life.
They pointed to comic Ellen DeGeneres, whose sitcom was taken off the air after she declared her love for actress Anne Heche and engineered her show so that her TV character came out at about the same time.
However, Miss DeGeneres now hosts a successful daytime chat show.
"I think Jodie just wanted to thank one of the most important people in her life," said a friend of Miss Foster yesterday.
"She wants to be treated like everybody else and has been in movies long enough not to be unduly worried about the effect it's going to have on her career."
One reason for guarding her privacy so intently was because she was the victim of stalkers earlier in her career, including John Hinckley, the man who shot President Reagan.
Miss Foster landed her first job in a sun cream commercial when she was three years old and appeared in 50 films before she left school, including her shocking breakthrough role as a child prostitute in Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro.
She became one of the most successful adult stars in Hollywood by taking on gutsy roles like rape victim Sarah Tobias in The Accused in 1988 and Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs three years later, both of which won her Best Actress Oscars.
Last night Kathy Belge, of the website Lesbian Life, said: "I never thought I'd see this day. Perhaps it was because her children are getting older and she didn't want them to think there was anything wrong with being gay.
"Perhaps she was simply sick and tired of life in the closet.
"Whatever her reasons, we are pleased that Jodie found the courage to be true to herself."
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