Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) Angelina Jolie is an American film actor and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.
Net worth: Angelina Jolie's earnings in June 2013 were $33 million (Forbes)
Childhood: Angelina Jolie was born in Los Angeles, California to father Jon Voight and mother Marcheline Bertrand, both of whom are actors. Jolie was inspired to act through watching films with her mother as a child. Jolie enrolled at the Lee Stasberg Theatre Institute, where she appeared in several stage productions. Jolie dropped out of acting class at the age of 14, wanting to become a funeral director. She began working as a model mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. Jolie graduated high school and returned to acting classes two years later. In her teens and early twenties, she suffered depression and self-harmed due to being bullied and feeling isolated in high school. She also experimented with drugs around this time of her life, including heroin. Jolie has had a difficult relationship with her father, due to his infidelity that caused her parents to separate in 1976. After many years of not speaking to her father, Jolie reconciled with him when he appeared with Jolie in 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'. They fell out again, before making up in 2007 in the wake of her mother's death from ovarian cancer.
Career: Though she made her screen debut as a child, Jolie's acting career really began a decade later with the low budget production Cyborg 2 (1993) and later with her first leading role in Hackers (1995). She then went on to star in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). Jolie achieved international fame playing videogame heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and the sequel in 2003, and since then has established herself as one of the best-known and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. One of her biggest commercial successes has been with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) although Beowulf and The Good Shepherd also did well. In 2008, Jolie starred in the action film 'Wanted' alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman, which was met with generally positive reviews. She then featured in the animated film 'Kung Fu Panda' voicing Master Tigress. Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Jackie Chan also featured in the film. The same year, Jolie starred in Clint Eastwood's 'Changeling', which earned her nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award. Jolie didn't feature in another film until starring in the 2010 thriller 'Salt'. She also starred alongside Johnny Depp in 'The Tourist' that year, which received negative reviews mostly, but Jolie did receive a Golden Globe nomination for the role. Jolie then reprised her role as Master Tigress in 'Kung Fu Panda 2', which went on to be the fourth highest grossing film of 2011. Jolie made her directional debut with the romantic drama film 'In the Land of Blood and Honey'. The film received mix reviews overall, but received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes. After a three year absence from film, in 2014 Jolie starred in the Disney film 'Maleficent' which tells the story of 'Sleeping Beauty' through antagonist Maleficent, Jolie's character. Angelina Jolie has donated a remarkable amount of money to charitable causes throughout her career as well as making many publicised visits to third world countries. In 2012, after being a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for more than a decade, Jolie was promoted to the rank of Special Envoy to High Commissioner António Guterres, the first to take on such a position in the organization. In this role, Jolie represents UNHCR and Guterres at the diplomatic level to facilitate lasting solutions for people harmed by crises.
Personal Life: In March, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film 'Hackers'. Not content with a wedding dress, she wore black rubber pants and a white shirt which featured Jonny's name written in blood. Jolie and Miller separated the following year and subsequently divorced in 1999. Jolie is bisexual and has previously had a relationship with Jenny Shimizu. She then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton in 2000. They were divorced in May 2003. In 2005, it was alleged that Jolie and Brad Pitt had begun an affair during 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith', despite Pitt being married to Jennifer Aniston. They denied that their relationship begun during that time and still insist they got together following Pitt and Aniston's divorce. Jolie and Pitt have six children, three of whom were adopted. Maddox Chivan was adopted in 2002 in Cambodia, Pax Thien in Vietnam in 2007 and Zahara Marley in Ethiopia in 2005. Their biological children are Shiloh Nouvel (b. 2007) and twins Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline (b. 2008). In 2013, Jolie underwent a double mastectomy after discovering she was at high risk of developing breast cancer due to her BRCA1 gene. The news was received with an enormous amount of respect from the media and fans alike. Jolie currently has around 13 known tattoos, among them the Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages", which she got together with her mother.
Biography by Contactmusic.com
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are reportedly at odds over custody of their six children
