Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster is set to receive the Cecil B DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes next year in honour of her 40-year career as an actress, director and film producer, organisers said last Thursday.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which organises the annual Golden Globe awards, said Foster, 49, will join the likes of past winners Lucille Ball, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman and Judy Garland, and become the 2013 recipient of the award.

"Jodie is a multifaceted woman that has achieved immeasurable amounts of success and will continue to do so in her career," HFPA president Aida Takla-O'Reilly said in a statement as quoted in media reports.

"Her ambition, exuberance and grace have helped pave the way for budding artists in this business. She's truly one of a kind," she added.

Foster began her career filming commercials at the age of three and won international fame at the age of 14with her role as a child prostitute opposite Robert De Niro in the 1976 film Taxi Driver.

She became one of the most successful adult stars in Hollywood by taking on gutsy roles like portraying a gang rape survivor in The Accused in 1988 and a FBI agent in 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs three years later, both of which won her Best Actress Oscars.

She has since appeared in more than 40 movies, including Panic Room (2002), The Brave One (2007), and Carnage (2011). She has also directed the films Little Man Tate, Home for the Holidays and The Beaver. Her next role is as a government official in director Neil Blomkamp's sci-fi saga Elysium with Matt Damon.

The fiercely-private actress is known to have only spoken publicly about her long-term partner Cydney Bernard once after receiving an award at the Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment event in 2007. Foster referred to her partner saying, ‘My beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss.’ The pair reportedly split in 2008. Foster is the mother of two sons aged 13 and 10.

Foster and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper were "outed" by The Advocate, a popular US gay magazine, in a cover story in a 2007 issue. At the time, although both have not publicly identified themselves as gay, they were ranked numbers 2 and 43 respectively on Out's list of "The 50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Lesbians in America." Cooper officially came out as gay in July this year.

Foster will be presented with her award at the Golden Globes ceremony in Beverly Hills on January 13, which will be hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler who are both actresses, comedians, producers, writers and known for their roles in NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live.