Jolie's acting career began with the low budget production Cyborg 2 in 1993 and had her first leading role in a major film in Hackers (1995). She went on to appear in the critically acclaimed biopics George Wallace and Gia, and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). Jolie achieved international fame for her portrait of videogame heroine Lara Croft in 2001 and since then established herself as one of the best known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood.^[2] She had her biggest commercial success with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).^[3]

Jolie was married to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton and she currently lives with fellow actor Brad Pitt, a relationship that sparked a worldwide media frenzy.^[4] Jolie and Pitt have two adopted children, Maddox and Zahara, and a biological child, Shiloh. Since 2001 Jolie is well known for promoting humanitarian causes around the globe, most prominently for her work with refugees through UNHCR.

Early life and family

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. 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. She is of Czech and English descent on her father's side, and French-Canadian and Iroquois on her mother's side.^[2]

After her parents' divorce in 1976, one-year-old Jolie and her older brother James Haven were raised by their mother who had moved with them to Palisades, New York; one year later Voight won his Academy Award for Best Actor for Coming Home. Her mother gave up her dream of becoming an actress to raise Jolie and Haven.^[5] As a child Jolie collected snakes and lizards, she had a crush on Mr. Spock and went to the movies regularly with her mother; Jolie later explained this is how she got interested in acting, not from her father.^[6] When she was 11 the family moved back to Los Angeles. Now Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions. As a student at Beverly Hills High School (later Moreno High School), she was not alone in her cinematic ambitions, but often felt like an outsider in the midst of pampered children who teased her for her odd looks and being painfully skinny, for wearing braces, glasses and second-hand clothes, since unlike the other parents, her mother was not rich.^[6] Her confidence was further damaged when her initial attempts at modeling proved unsuccessful. Jolie grew increasingly unhappy, felt worthless and started to cut herself; something she speaks openly about today, e.g. during an appearance on CNN, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me."^[7] At 14, Jolie dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director.^[8] She started a life of fast-living and active self-loathing, wore black, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend.^[6] Two years later, as the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's place.^[5] She went back to theatre and graduated high school, but even today Jolie likes to point out, "I am still at heart just a punk kid with tattoos".^[9]

Jolie has been long estranged from her father – in part because she blames his cheating on her mother for the break up of their family – though a reconciliation was attempted by his appearing with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In July 2002 Jolie filed a request to legally change her name to "Angelina Jolie", dropping Voight as her last name; the name change was made official on September 12, 2002.^[10] In August of the same year Voight had claimed that his daughter has "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood. In the October 2004 issue of Premiere Magazine Jolie indicated that she was no longer interested in pursuing a relationship with her father, "My father and I don’t speak. I don’t hold any anger toward him. I don’t believe that somebody’s family becomes their blood. Because my son’s adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for not having a relationship with her father, but since she had just adopted her son Maddox, that she did not think it was healthy for her to be around him.^[11] Voight has not met his grandchildren.^[12]

Career

Early work, 1993–1997

Jolie began working as a fashion model at 14. She was signed with Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United States and Europe, working mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. She also appeared in numerous music videos, including those of Meat Loaf ("Rock'n'Roll Dreams Come Through"), Antonello Venditti ("Benvenuti in Paradiso") and Lenny Kravitz ("Stand by My Woman").^[2] At the age of 16 Jolie went back to theatre. Now committed to acting, her first role was a German dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, as she noticed how he would observe people to become like them. At that time she stopped fighting with him so much, realizing that they were both "drama queens".^[6]

Jolie had appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but her movie career properly began in 1993, when she got her first leading role as Casella "Cash" Reese in the low budget film Cyborg 2, playing a near-human robot, designed to seduce her way into the headquarters of her creators' rivals and blow up. Following several undistinguished projects she starred as Kate "Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture, the 1995 film Hackers where she met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. The New York Times wrote, "Kate (Angelina Jolie) stands out. That's because she scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top. Despite her sullen posturing, which is all this role requires, Ms. Jolie has the sweetly cherubic looks of her father, Jon Voight."^[13] The movie failed to make a profit at the box-office, but has developed a cult following from its video release.

She appeared as Gina Malacici in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family restaurant owners in Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon she was a youngster, named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello, while he takes a shine to her mother, Anne Archer. Still in 1996 she played Margret "Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond in the film Foxfire after they beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times wrote about Jolie's performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst."^[14]

In 1997 Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, a film portraying a famed L.A. surgeon who is stripped of his medical license and is lured deep into the criminal world where he meets Jolie’s character Claire. The movie wasn't received well by critics and Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is."^[15] She then appeared in the TV movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the West, based on the book by Janice Woods Windle.

Breakthrough, 1997–2000

Jolie achieved wider recognition after being nominated for an Emmy and picking up a Golden Globe Award for her role as Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biopic George Wallace. The film was highly praised by critics and, among others, received the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries/Motion Picture made for TV. She played the second wife of the segregationist Governor of Alabama who was shot and paralyzed while running for President. The film starred Gary Sinise and was directed by John Frankenheimer.

In 1998 Jolie starred in HBO's Gia, another biopic, this time of bisexual supermodel Gia Carangi. The film featured sex, drugs and fearsome emotional drama, including the destruction of Carangi's life and career by her drug habit and her gruesome death of AIDS. Vanessa Vance from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal – filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation – and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed."^[16] For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. In accordance to Lee Strasberg's method acting Jolie reportedly prefers to stay in character in between scenes during many of her films which can make her difficult to deal with, depending on the character. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller, she wouldn't be able to phone him. "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"^[17]

Following Gia Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a short period of time, because she felt like she had "nothing else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study filmmaking and attended writing classes. Jolie describe it as "just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors Studio.

Jolie returned to the big screen playing Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen and later that year headlined an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe, and Jon Stewart in Playing by Heart. The drama tells the story of several seemingly unconnected characters, with Jolie playing the young club-scene hipster Joan. The film received predominantly positive reviews and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble."^[18] Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.

In 1999 she starred in the Mike Newell's comedy-drama Pushing Tin, about two air traffic controllers who engage in macho conflict, co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's seductive wife Mary Bell. The film got a lukewarm reception from critics and Jolie's character was particularly criticized. The Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home."^[19] She worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector, an adapted crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide who is reluctant to help Washington tracking down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide,^[3] but was a critical failure; the Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."^[20]

Then, Jolie took the supporting role of Lisa Rowe alongside Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted, a film that tells the story of female mental patient Susanna Kaysen and was adapted from Kaysen's original memoir Girl Interrupted. The movie was supposed to be a return to dramatic form for Ryder, but instead became the welcome-to-Hollywood coronation for Jolie. For her portrait of wild-girl inmate Lisa she won her third Golden Globe, her second Screen Actors Guild Award as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation"^[21] and Roger Ebert wrote about her performance:

In 2000 Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of super-car-thief Nicolas Cage. She did not have much screen time and the Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth."^[23] She later explained that the film was a welcome relief from the heavy role of Lisa Rowe and it would turn out to be her highest grossing movie up until then, with $237 million internationally.^[3]

Superstardom, 2001–present

Following her Oscar success, Jolie was a well-respected actress in Hollywood, but it was the 2001 videogame adaptation Lara Croft: Tomb Raider that made her an international superstar. To play videogame heroine Lara Croft, she had to master a British accent and extensive martial arts training. Jolie was generally praised for her physical performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews. Slant Magazine commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but [ director ] Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger."^[24] The movie was a huge international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide,^[3] and started her reputation as a female action star. She earned a reported $7 million.^[2]

Jolie then starred alongside Antonio Banderas as the mail-order bride Julia Russell in Original Sin, a thriller based on the novel Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. The film was a major critical failure, with The New York Times noting, "The story plunges more precipitously than Ms. Jolie's neckline."^[25] In 2002 she played Lanie Kerrigan in Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote, "Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points in the middle of the film, this Academy Award-winning actress is exceedingly believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of fulfilling life."^[26]

Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative as the original, still brought in $156 million at the international box-office.^[3] Jolie was paid $12 million for this second installment.^[2] Later that year Jolie starred in Beyond Borders, a film about aid workers in Africa. Although reflecting Jolie's real-life interest in promoting humanitarian relief, the film was critically and financially unsuccessful. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Jolie, as she did in her Oscar-winning role in Girl, Interrupted, can bring electricity and believability to roles that have a reality she can understand. She can also, witness the Lara Croft films, do acknowledged cartoons. But the limbo of a hybrid character, a badly written cardboard person in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world, completely defeats her."^[27]

In 2004 Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller Taking Lives, in which she plays Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler summoned to help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour."^[28] She also provided the voice of Lola, the angelfish in the animated DreamWorks movie Shark Tale; the cast included Will Smith, Martin Scorsese, Renée Zellweger, Jack Black and Robert De Niro. Also in 2004, Jolie had a brief appearance as Franky in Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a science fiction adventure film shot with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen, with all the sets and nearly all of the props computer-generated. Jolie then played Olympias in Alexander, Oliver Stone’s biopic about the life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, partly due to criticism regarding Alexander’s homosexuality,^[29] but succeeded internationally, with $139 million outside the United States.^[3] Newsday wrote of Jolie's performance, "Jolie is the only one in the picture who seems to be having any fun with her role, and one misses her whenever she's off-screen."^[30]

Jolie's only movie of 2005, the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, is also her biggest commercial success to date. The film, directed by Doug Liman, tells the story of a bored married couple who find out that they're both secret assassins. Jolie starred as Jane Smith alongside Brad Pitt. The film was received amicably and generally lauded for the chemistry between the two leads. The Star Tribune noted, "While the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry."^[31] The movie earned over $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.^[3]

During the second half of 2005, Jolie filmed her part in Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd, a movie about the early history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Jolie co-stars as Clover Wilson, Wilson's wife, who becomes an alcoholic through the course of the movie. The film is set for release in December of 2006.

Jolie's confirmed future projects include the animated movies Beowulf (playing Grendel's mother) and Kung Fu Panda as well as A Mighty Heart, a film based on the life of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan; she will star as Pearl’s wife, Mariane Pearl.^[32] She will also appear in the movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged and is rumored to be involved in Sin City 2.^[12]

Humanitarian work

Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely mined Cambodia. According to Jolie, "I discovered things about what's happening in the world... Cambodia was really eye opening for me."^[33] Deeply affected by these experiences, she eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she agreed to visit different refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in these areas. In February 2001, Jolie went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed how shocked she was by these first missions.^[34] In the coming months she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and later visited Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal.^[35] She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits.^[34] Impressed by her interest and devotion in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, despite her warning that her controversial public image might shed a negative light on the U.N.^[36] In a press conference Jolie explained her motives for joining the refugee agency:

During her first three years as Goodwill Ambassador Jolie concentrated her efforts on field missions, visiting refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) all around the world. Asked what she hopes to accomplish, she stated, “Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon.”^[37] In 2002 Jolie visited Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador to take a closer look at the “Western Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis”.^[38] She and US Secretary of State Colin Powell opened events to celebrate World Refugee Day 2002 on June 20 in Washington, D.C.^[39] Jolie then went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. UNHCR's Representative to Kenya, George Okoth-Obbo, praised her “presence, just to bring some joy into what is undoubtedly a hard life for many of the people here”.^[40] She also visited Angolan refugees while she was filming Beyond Borders in Namibia.

One year later in 2003 Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka, getting a first–hand look at the post–war conditions in northern Sri Lanka. Jolie again attended World Refugee Day on June 20 in Washington, D.C., and later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus to learn about all aspects of UNHCR's operations in the region. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders in October 2003 she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001-2002). All her proceeds from the book went to UNHCR. During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Ruwaished camp in Jordan's remote eastern desert, 70 km from the Iraqi border. The camp hosted some 800 people who had fled Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion and later that month she visited Sudanese refugees near the Egyptian capital in Kilo Arbaa We Nus.

On her first U.N. trip within the United States Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four month later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur to learn about the situation on the ground of thousands of IDPs. She stressed the need for security and access to displaced people's home villages at a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. On June 18, 2004 she and US Secretary of State Colin Powell met again in Washington to launch the three day events of World Refugee Day.^[41] Also in 2004 Jolie visited Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.

With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. Since 2005 she has attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, announcing the formation of a Council of Business Leaders with UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner, Wendy Chamberlin, in 2005, and participated in the panel discussion Human Rights: Reduced to Charity? in 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in Washington, D.C. where she met with congressmen and senators at least 20 times since 2003.^[36] She explained in Forbes:

Among others, she pushed for The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act in reaction to her previous visit to facilities for asylum seekers in Arizona. On March 8, 2005 Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, D.C. where she promoted the bill and in support of it announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of $500,000 for its first two years. The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act eventually passed in December 2005. Jolie also pushed for a bill to aid 70 million vulnerable children in the Third World which was signed by President Bush in November 2005, but so far no funding has been granted.^[36] In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using the public’s interest in her to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. In May 2005 Jolie filmed a MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on their trip to Sauri, a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. There, Sachs's United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to end poverty, hunger and disease. In September 2005 Jolie was named the new spokesperson for the clothing line St. John starting in the Spring of 2006. The deal includes the start-up of a charity headed by Jolie which will focus on children's issues and causes. On October 24, 2005 Jolie attended the First Annual Benefit Gala for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, where she pledged to partner with the WHO to treat children in Ethiopia who have been orphaned by AIDS and are HIV positive. She also announced her plan to support the WHO's Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and pledged an initial grant. In September 2006 Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders of $1 million each.^[42]

Jolie still kept traveling, visiting different Pakistani camps harboring Afghan refugees in May 2005 and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. She returned to Pakistan – accompanied by her boyfriend Brad Pitt – during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see firsthand the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake. Both met with many quake victims as well as President Musharraf. In 2006 Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. Jolie also arranged a deal with People allowing them to print the first picture showing her visibly pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to Yéle Haïti.^[43] During a two-month stay in Namibia, as she awaited the birth of her daughter, Jolie promoted the Global Education Week in an interview with NBC and she also took part in a conference call with UK Chancellor Gordon Brown who has pledged an extra $16 billion towards universal free education. Jolie has worked with Senator Hillary Clinton since 2005 to get the Education for All bill approved by the U.S. Congress.^[44]

Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. On October 24, 2003 she was the first recipient of the new created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there.^[45] On October 12, 2005, Jolie was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.^[46]

Relationships

On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers. She attended her wedding in black leather trousers and a white shirt, which had her groom's name painted in her blood on the back.^[12] Jolie and Miller separated one year later and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. Both remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "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."^[17]

Jolie then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton who she had met on the set of Pushing Tin on May 5, 2000. As a result of their frequent public declarations of passion and gestures of love (most famously wearing one another's blood in vials around their necks), their relationship became a favorite topic of the entertainment media.^[12] Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked in Vogue about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "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."^[47]

Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her."^[48] In an interview with Barbara Walters in 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"^[49]

In early 2005, Jolie found herself in the middle of a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the "other woman" in the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. However, in several interviews she has denied starting an affair with Pitt. In an interview with Ann Curry in 2005, she explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."^[49]

While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented about the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. The first intimate paparazzi photos emerged in April, one month after Aniston had filed for divorce; the now-famous pictures show Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer Jolie and Pitt were seen together with increasing frequency and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006 Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirming their relationship for the first time in public.^[12]

Children

Maddox

On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt (originally Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie^[10]). He was born on August 5, 2001 as Rath Vibol in Cambodia and he initially lived in a local orphanage in Battambang.^[50] Jolie decided to apply for adoption after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming Tomb Raider and on a UNHCR field trip in 2001. After her divorce from her second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie received sole custody of Maddox.

Maddox's name is Celtic in origin, usually translated as "beneficent".^[51] Jolie developed several nicknames for him, normally she calls him "Mad". Maddox, like Jolie's two other children, has gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the tabloid media; he was named the "cutest celebrity kid",^[52] his clothes have been described as trendsetting for children's wear^[50] and he is known for this Mohawk hairstyle, which Jolie gave him because "he had this crazy hair that stuck straight up. I had to do something with it."^[50]

In March 2005, Lauryn Galindo, the Hawaii-based adoption facilitator whose services Jolie had used to adopt Maddox, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to visa fraud and money laundering charges. She had been falsifying records of children to be adopted in visa applications to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and several of the children she placed had not been abandoned at all but were enticed away or bought from their birth families.^[53] There is no evidence that Maddox was among them. He was naturalized as a United States citizen upon entry into the U.S.

Zahara

On July 6, 2005, Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt (originally Zahara Marley Jolie), who was orphaned by AIDS. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005 as Tena Adam.^[54] Jolie picked her up at a Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States Zahara had to spend time in a hospital for dehydration and malnutrition. Jolie stated that "she was six months and not nine pounds. Her skin – you could squeeze it and it would stick together." Since then, however, Zahara has gained weight well, and the family now calls her "chubby".^[12] Zahara's name means "flower" in Swahili,^[55] the second name "Marley" comes from late Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley. Zahara's nickname is "Z".

In the months following Zahara's adoption news reports emerged in which several women either claimed to be her birth mother or her grandmother. Jolie had a lawyer to look into these allegations and they proved to be false. While making an appearance on CNN's The Situation Room Jolie stated that her daughter is an "AIDS orphan." By that she means her birth mother died from AIDS, but her daughter does not have the disease. The birth father of Zahara is not known. Her statement made it clear that the birth mother is indeed dead. In late October 2005, an Ethiopian judge ruled that there is no evidence to suggest that Jolie would have to file for re-adoption of her daughter. The judge ruled that a woman claiming to be her mother is not the birth mother.^[12]

Brad Pitt was reportedly present when Jolie signed the adoption papers and picked up her daughter;^[12] later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara together.^[56] In December 2005 it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children. In support of this bid (and as part of legal requirements), Jolie took out classified advertisements in the Los Angeles paper Daily Commerce announcing the name change request, and on January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".^[57]

Shiloh

On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to the couple's third child (first biological), a daughter named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at night at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Shiloh was born by a scheduled caesarean section, due to breech presentation, and Pitt was there to cut her umbilical cord. The couple's Los Angeles obstetrician was assisted by local staff. Shiloh, according to a long-standing translation from the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one."

People was told by Namibia's Environment and Tourism Deputy Minister, Leon Jooste, that "Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt will, according to Namibian law, be allowed to obtain Namibian citizenship, if the parents should choose to do so." On June 7 Pitt confirmed that their newly-born daughter will have a Namibian passport while speaking to local journalists.^[58] Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these extremely valuable snapshots. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide – the most expensive celebrity image of all time.^[59] All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. On July 26 Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it is the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.^[60] In August 2006, 41 percent of all 18- to 24-year-old American adults knew Shiloh's correct first name according to an Ad Council survey.^[61]

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper that originally aired on June 20, 2006, Jolie revealed that she and Pitt are planning to adopt another child in the foreseeable future.^[56]

Jolie in the media

Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous father Jon Voight. At 7 she had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986 and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards as a teenager with him. However, when she started her acting career Jolie decided not to use “Voight” as a stage name, as she didn't want to be associated with her father, but come into her own as an actress.^[12] Jolie was never shy about controversy as she cultivated her wild girl image she had as a teenager into her public persona in the first years of her career. During her acceptance speech at the 2000 Academy Awards, Jolie declared "I'm so in love with my brother right now" which, combined with her affectionate behavior towards him that night, sparked rumors in the tabloid media of an incestuous relationship with her brother James Haven. She has continually denied those rumors and said while appearing on Inside the Actors Studio “the world is a lot sicker than I thought”. Jolie and Haven later explained in interviews that after their parents' divorce they relied on one another and because of that they hold on to each other as a means of emotional support.^[12]

Quickly, Jolie became a tabloid's favorite, since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews, once claiming to be "most likely to sleep with a female fan."^[48] Her love life, especially her interest in sadomasochism, has often been featured in the media. In 2004 she stated in Allure, "S&M sex can be misinterpreted as violence. It's really about trust. I like to push boundaries, both emotional and sexual, with another person. That's when I've felt the sexiest. I've been in both submissive and dominant roles because I want more."^[62] She also created headlines with her much publicized marriage to Billy Bob Thornton and her subsequent change into an advocate for global humanitarian problems. As she took on the role of UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador she started to use her celebrity to highlight humanitarian causes worldwide, e.g. promoting World Refugee Day 2006 in a two hour CNN special interview with Anderson Cooper which attracting more than double the audience of his typical newscast.^[63] Jolie has been taking flight lessons since 2004 and she has a student pilot and private pilot (UK based) license.^[64] The media speculated that Jolie is a Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. Jolie has not stated definitively whether or not she believes in God. When asked in an interview with The Onion A.V. Club in 2000 if there was a God she said, "For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me."^[65]

Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters described it in their story The Brangelina fever; among others, there were several false wedding rumors including an alleged imminent wedding in Laglio, Italy that was even further ignited by the local mayor and was picked up by many noted news services like the Associated Press and the BBC.^[66] Trying to avoid this ongoing media frenzy, the couple eventually went to Namibia for the birth of “the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ”, as it has been described ironically.^[67]

Today, Jolie is one of the best known celebrities around the globe. According to the Q Score survey by Marketing Evaluations Inc., in 2000, subsequent to her Oscar win, 31% of respondents in the United States said Jolie was familiar to them, by 2006 she was familiar to 81% of Americans.^[36] In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets Jolie, together with Brad Pitt, was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products worldwide.^[68] Also in 2006, Jolie was among the TIME 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, ^[69] she was featured on the cover of Forbes "The Celebrity 100" edition, ranking at No. 35,^[70] and she was described as the world's most beautiful woman in the "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People.^[1]

Tattoos

Jolie's inventory of tattoos has become the subject of much media attention and has often been addressed by interviewers, such as Barbara Walters and James Lipton. Jolie has stated that a positive effect from the large number of tattoos on her body is that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, filmmakers have been forced to become more creative when plotting nude or love scenes.^[71] Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her productions. She frequently adds or even changes existing tattoos and has said that all the tattoos she possesses have a special meaning.

Jolie's tattoos:^[72]

• the lower case letter "h" (for her brother James Haven) on the inside of her left wrist.
• "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" (Tennessee Williams) on her left forearm.
• "XIII" (number 13 in Roman numerals) on her left forearm.
• geographic coordinates representing the locations where she adopted Maddox (N11° 33' 00" E104° 51' 00") and Zahara (N09° 02' 00" E038° 45' 00") on her left arm which cover up her "Billy Bob" tattoo.
• "العزيمة" (Arabic for "strength of will") on her right forearm.
• "Quod me nutrit me destruit" (Latin for "What nourishes me also destroys me") several inches below her navel.
• a tilted Latin cross on the lower left of her abdomen.
• "know your rights" just under her neck between her shoulders.
• a prayer of Buddhist Sanskrit symbols for her son Maddox on her left shoulder which covers up the "death" tattoo.
• a large Asian tiger on her back.
• a dragon under the tiger.
• two pointy black tribals on the lower parts of her back.

Lasered/Covered:^[72]

• a dragon on her left arm (she has been lasering it for some time now, but it is still faintly visible).
• "Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, on her left arm.
• an unidentified tattoo both Thornton and Jolie shared. It was on her right forearm, now covered by the "strength of will" tattoo.
• a Chinese/Japanese character for courage (勇) which matched a tattoo of her first husband Jonny Lee Miller, now covered by the Tennessee Williams quote.
• a Chinese/Japanese character for death (死), now covered by the prayer for her son.
• a dragon she got in Amsterdam while drunk, now covered by the Latin cross.
• a window on her lower back. On Inside the Actors Studio, she explained that she covered this tattoo, because, 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.

Filmography

Notes

References

External links

• Angelina Jolie at the Internet Movie Database
• Angelina Jolie at Yahoo! Movies
• Angelina Jolie at All Movie Guide
• UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, official homepage at UNHCR.org
• Angelina Jolie's Refugee Journals, Jolie's journals (2002-2004) at UNHCR.org
• Journey Through Eastern Congo, multimedia journal, narrated by Jolie herself
• Tattoo Gallery, pictures of her tattoos, past and present
• Wuthering Jolie, comprehensive fan site with a large news archive
• Angelina, Brad & Baby Shiloh, People special