Girls on film: starting young in Hollywood

Ellen Page started acting at 10, but Drew Barrymore, who will direct her in Whip It, was just seven when Steven Spielberg cast her in ET. She was in rehab by the time she was 13, but her film career recovered in the 1990s.

While many pre-teen actresses failed to sustain their careers into adulthood, there have been some notable exceptions.

Elizabeth Taylormade her film debut at 10, worked consistently through her teens and collected two Oscars in the 1960s, for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Natalie Woodwas eight when she starred in Miracle on 34th Street. She made more than 60 movies, including Rebel Without a Cause, The Searchers and West Side Story, before she died in a drowning accident when filming Brainstorm in 1981.

Jodie Fosterstarted in commercials at the age of two, worked regularly on TV until she was 13, when she starred in Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver in the same year (1976). She has won two Oscars (for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs) and has directed two movies.

Tatum O'Neal, Ryan's daughter, was just 10 when she won an Oscar for Paper Moon (1973). She became the highest paid child star when she made The Bad News Bears (1976). After a break from acting when she married John McEnroe and had three children, she returned in the 1990s, working mostly in TV.

Anna Paquinwas 11 when she won an Oscar for her film debut in The Piano (1993). Now 25, she has worked extensively in pictures as diverse as Almost Famous, 25th Hour, The Squid and the Whale and the X-Men movies.

Christina Ricciwas 11 when she played Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family. Now 27, she has made more than 40 movies, including The Opposite of Sex, Sleepy Hollow, Monster and Penelope, which opens today and is reviewed on page 12

Scarlett Johanssonmade her debut in North (1994) at 10 and has been prolific ever since, in movies such as Ghost World, Lost in Translation, Match Point, The Prestige and The Other Boleyn Girl, due here next month.

Saoirse Ronan(now 13) seems set for a long career. From Carlow, she started out in The Clinic when she was nine. She is nominated for an Oscar for Atonement. She next joins Michelle Pfeiffer in I Could Never Be Your Woman, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Guy Pearce in Death Defying Acts, and Bill Murray and Tim Robbins in City of Ember, all for release this year. She is now starring in Peter Jackson's film of The Lovely Bones.