Angelina Jolie Biography
Angelina Jolie has gone from modeling, starring in music
videos, and acting in student films directed by her brother, to
becoming one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood today.
A controversial figure, she is known as much for her acting as
she is for her humanitarian efforts, eccentricities, and
tumultuous relationships. She is the niece of Chip Taylor,
sister of James Haven and the god-daughter of
Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. People often assume
that Jolie's mother is French, because of her name, but Jolie's
grandparents were French-Canadian.
Angelina Jolie
was born on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, California. As the
daughter of Academy Award winning actor
Jon Voight, it was fitting that she chose to study theater
at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Before starring in box
office hits, Jolie worked as a model in London, New York, and
Los Angeles. She also appeared in music videos for big-name
artists like
Meat Loaf and
Lenny Kravitz. Her first appearance on the big screen was in
1982 when she acted alongside her father in the comedy
Lookin’ to Get
Out.
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Although she
appeared in several films in the early 1990s, her first starring
role was in the 1995 film
Hackers. She earned critical acclaim for her 1998
television film Gia,
a role that earned her a Golden Globe award as
well as an Emmy nomination. Since this time she has acted in
well-known and highly acclaimed films such as
The Bone Collector
and Girl, Interrupted,
as well as several box office flops. Even though some of Jolie’s
movies have been unsuccessful, she is one of the most sought
after actresses in Hollywood today.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith earned her ten million dollars while the
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies have brought her seven and twelve million dollars
respectively. She also appears in the film
The Good Shepherd, directed by
Robert De Niro.
Angelina Jolly For Focus Magazine (March 2010)
Angelina’s
relationships are as fascinating as the woman herself. Her first
marriage was in 1996, to
Hacker’s co-star Johnny Lee Miller, who also acted
in the controversial film
Trainspotting.
At her
wedding,
Jolie sported a white shirt with Miller’s name painted in blood
as she walked down the aisle.
After their divorce in 1999, Jolie married Academy Award winning
actor
Billy Bob Thornton, who had been previously married four
times. This relationship was highly covered by the media for the
couple’s odd testaments of love, including their practice of
wearing vials of each other’s blood around their necks. The odd
testaments of love ended along with the marriage in 2003.
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Angelina’s
current and most widely publicized relationship is with actor Brad Pitt who was once engaged to Gwyneth Paltrow. Pitt and Jolie met on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith where it is rumored that the relationship began. Pitt is widely known in Hollywood, not only as a movie star, but also as the former husband of Jennifer Aniston. The Aniston-Pitt marriage took place in
2000, and lasted only four short years. Because of the timing of their divorce, rumors abound that Jolie was the cause of this power-couple’s separation and ultimate divorce.
Although Jolie
has denied that she began an affair with Pitt
while he was still married, the current nature of their
relationship is no secret. He has adopted Angelina’s two adopted
children: Cambodian-born Maddox and Ethiopian-born Zahara, whose
last names were legally changed to Jolie-Pitt. Jolie also gave
birth to their biological daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, on
May 27, 2006. As of yet, there has been no mention of a wedding
date.
Prior to the birth of their biological child, Jolie and Pitt
travelled to Vietnam and adopted a little three year old boy in
March 2007. Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt, had been abandoned at birth at
a local hospital, where he was initially named Pham Quang Sang.
Jolie told the press that the child's name, Pax, was chosen by
her mother just before her death in 2007.