Angelina Jolie Biography
Birth Name: Angelina Jolie Voight
Birth Date: June 4, 1975
Birth Place: Los Angeles, California
Height: 5′8″
Angelina Jolie grew up in Los Angeles, exposed to the film industry by her father Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight. She, herself, trained and performed at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and starred in several stage productions.
The Oscar-winning actress first became popular by taking on the title role in the very popular “Lara Croft” movies. Off-screen, Angelina Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees.
She often appears on many “most beautiful women” lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press. Even before she met Brad Pitt and became half of the most celebrated supercouple in the world, she was followed closely by the paps – but since pairing with a fellow A-lister, the coverage is completely unreal.
Angelina’s beloved mother was Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg.
At the young age of 16, Angelina Jolie took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos. Her exotic looks are a result of a mixed ancestry which is Czech, French-Canadian, Iroquois and English.
In the mid-1990s, Angelina Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good reviews, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997), and in George Wallace (1997). Her role in George Wallace won her a Golden Globe award and an Emmy nomination.
Angelina Jolie’s acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998). Many people sat up and took notice of this exceptionally beautiful actress who could also act circles around other actors and actresses. Gia was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie’s performance in Gia (1998) again garnered a Golden Globe award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.
Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in The Bone Collector (1999), co-starring Denzel Washington. In that same year, Angelina Jolie gave one of the best cinematic performances ever in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Oddly enough, “Girl Interrupted” received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Angelina Jolie won the triple crown — “Girl” propelled her to win the Golden Globe, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role. Very, very well-deserved honors for a chilling performance.
With her arrival to the A-List, unfortunately, many aspects of her life became newsworthy:
- At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she displayed her husband’s name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood.
- Jolie and Miller divorced and in 2000 she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. She became the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior.
- During her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other’s blood around their necks.
- Her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton ended in 2002 and ended in divorce. Apparently, they remained on friendly terms.
- Angelina Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight, for a while.
In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role intrigued her. The Croft character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. The film brought in $275 million! Jolie’s father Jon Voight appeared in “Croft”, and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.
One of the Croft movie’s took Angelina Jolie on location to Cambodia. The natural beauty, culture and unfortunate poverty of that country touched the actress deeply. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. She began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book Angelina Jolie’s: Notes from My Travels
Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by the money she makes from her movies.
She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity.
In 2002, Angelina Jolie adopted a little Cambodian boy named Maddox and in 2005 adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara.
Angelina Jolie’s dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie’s images were too depressingly realistic — the film was not popular among critics or at the box office.
In 2004, Angelina Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with gorgeous co-star Brad Pitt. The film became a major box office success, due to the wonderful writing, directing, acting, and magical chemistry between the leading stars. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming “Smith”. However, Angelina Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Brad Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Brad Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Angelina Jolie, apparently as a couple. Brad Pitt’s divorce was finalized later in 2005.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Angelina gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May.
They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax.
Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl on July 12, 2008 in Nice, France around 8 PM via c-section. Knox Léon Jolie-Pitt weighed 5lbs 3 oz. and Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt weighed 5 lbs. Knox and Vivienne became Angelina and Brad’s fifth and sixth children – and we’re all certain there’ll be more to follow!
