Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie was born on June 4, 1975 in Los Angeles, to parents/famous actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. Angelina is the niece of Chip Taylor and sister of James Haven. The God-daughter of Jacquelin Bisset and Maximilian Schell.
She is Czechoslovak and German descent from her father’s side, French and Canadian descent from her mother’s side.
Angelina’s parents separated in 1976. Jolie and her brother, James were raised by their mother, who quit acting and moved to New York with her two children. Angelina has spoke about seeing movies with her mother and being inspired to act. When she was eleven years old, she moved back to LA with her mother and brother and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions.
When she turned 14, she quit acting classes and wanted to become a funeral director. She recalls her years at Beverly Hills High School included feelings of isolation among the children of very affluent families. Jolie’s mother lived on a modest income and Jolie and her brother often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased for this and also for her distinctive features, being extremely thin, wearing glasses, and braces. She claims she had very low self esteem and starting cutting herself to “feel a release.” She has also spoken about collecting knives and swords.
Two years later, at the age of just 16, after a live-in boyfriend relationship ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother’s home. She returned to theater and graduated from high school. She refers to this time in her life and says “I am still at heart, and always will be, just a punk kid with tattoos”.
Speaking of tattoo’s, Angelina is known to have a few….among them:
****The Tennessee Williams quote “A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages” (which she got together with her mother)
****The phrase in Arabic – “Strength of will”
****The Latin Proverb “quod me nutrit me destruit” (what nourishes me destroys me)
****A Yantra prayer written in the ancient Khmer script for her son Maddox.
**Six sets of geographical coordinates on her upper left arm indicating the birthplaces of her children. (That now covers a tattoo she had removed. It had the name of her second husband, Billy Bob.)
**Another tattoo that she had removed- was a window on her lower back. She says, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.
Back to her acting career…..
She made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, Jon Voight in Lookin’ to Get Out. She was also in Cyborg 2. But her first leading role in a major film was Hackers (1995) where she met her first husband, Johnny Lee Miller.
Johnny, a British actor, and Angelina married on March 28, 1996, they separated the following year and divorced on February 3, 1999. They remain on good terms to this day. Jolie later said, “It comes down to timing. I think he’s the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I’ll always love him, we were simply too young.”
Angelina went on to star in critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998). She was also in Girl, Interrupted (1999) and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
While filming Pushing Pin (1999) she met and married actor Billy Bob Thornton on May 5, 2000. They divorced on May 27, 2003. Jolie stated about their divorce, “It took me by surprise too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it’s scary but, I think it can happen when you get involved and you don’t know yourself yet.”
Jolie achieved major fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2010). Since then, she has established herself as one of the best-known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood. She has also had huge success with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and the animated film Kung fu Panda (2008).
With her very successful career, Jolie has received three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Academy Award.
In 2005 Angelina starred in Mr. and Mrs. Smith with actor Brad Pitt. Later, the two were involved in a very publicized Hollywood scandal. Rumors flew that Brad and Angelina were having an affair while Brad was married to actress Jennifer Aniston.
Pitt and Aniston divorced and even though Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented on the nature of their relationship, speculations continued. Pitt and Jolie were seen together more and more often. The entertainment media considered them a couple, and started calling them “Brangelina”. There have been several paparazzi photos of the couple over the years, however, it wasn’t until January 11, 2006, when Angelina confirmed to People Magazine that she was pregnant with Pitt’s child and thereby confirmed their relationship for the first time.
Angelina and Brad Pitt currently have attracted worldwide media attention and continue to do so. They live with their three adopted children, Maddox (adopted from Cambodia), Pax (adopted from Vietnam), and Zahara (adopted from Ethiopia). They also have three biological children, Shiloh, and twins, Knox and Vivienne.
If being involved with Brad Pitt, a mother of six children, and a successful actress (where she has been cited as one of the world’s most beautiful women) isn’t enough, Angelina also works very hard with her Humanitarian Work.
She first became aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia. Eventually, became a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner. She has visited hundreds of refugee camps, in more then 20 countries around the world. She has also donated millions of dollars and received several awards for her work and achievements.
Jolie has used her public profile to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. She filmed an MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs. She has also written a book “Notes from my Travels” where she discusses the real struggles she personally saw with refugees.
Jolie is quoted “We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don’t believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.” —Jolie on her motives for joining UNHCR in 2001
Today Angelina and Brad continue to help with donations and time with their humanitarian work. They also travel the world, taking turns working in films and caring for their six beautiful children.
For more infomation on Brad and the six children, please check out the other pages on this website.
