Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4th, 1975 in Los Angeles, California. She is of Czech and French-Canadian descent, and her father is actor
Jon Voight, and her mother was Marcheline Bertrand (who just recently passed away). Her parents separated when she was a baby, so she and her brother were raised by her mother in Palisades, New York. They moved back to Los Angeles when Jolie was eleven, and she enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute so she could try acting, and then on to Beverly Hills High School, where she never felt like she fit in. Jolie experimented with cutting herself to mask or release the emotional pain she felt.
She did some fashion modeling, appeared in music videos, and later earned a role in a small film,
Cyborg 2. Her first larger Hollywood role was in the film
Hackers (1995). Other film roles followed, many of the movies themselves forgettable, but Jolie’s skilled performances were not. Respect came when she played Cornelia Wallace in the made for TV film,
George Wallace (1997), for which she nominated for an Emmy, and won a Golden Globe. She also starred in the HBO film,
Gia, which earned her another Golden Globe, and a second Emmy nomination. After this she took a break from acting to go back to school, attending classes in film making and writing at New York University.
Eventually, acting won out and she again began taking a variety of film roles. She took a supporting role in the film,
Girl, Interrupted starring
Winona Ryder, which earned her plenty of praise from the critics, and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Starring as video game heroine Lara Croft in the film,
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) made her internationally famous and a household name. She also starred in
Alexander (2004),
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), and
The Good Shepherd (2006).
While working in Cambodia on
Tomb Raider, she became aware of the plight of children in third-world countries, and began doing humanitarian work and serving as a Goodwill Ambassador, and has been recognized and honored for her contributions.
Jolie’s personal life has been turbulent. She married British actor
Jonny Lee Miller (her co-star in the film
Hackers) in 1996, and they separated after a year, and divorced a couple years later. Her second husband was actor
Billy Bob Thornton, who she married 2000, and the couple made headlines for their very public and unusual declarations of passion, including wearing vials of each other’s blood around their necks. In 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, whom she named Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie, from Cambodia. Soon after this her marriage with Thornton dissolved. Jolie became involved with actor
Brad Pitt in 2005, though the pair claims their relationship was not physical until he divorced his wife, actress
Jennifer Aniston. Also in 2005, Jolie adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia, whom she named Zahara Marley Jolie. Pitt has since legally adopted Jolie’s children, and they now have his last name as well. Jolie recently gave birth to the couple’s third child, a daughter, on May 27, 2006, who they named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.
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Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4th, 1975 in Los Angeles, California. She is of Czech and French-Canadian descent, and her father is actor
Jon Voight, and her mother was Marcheline Bertrand (who just recently passed away). Her parents separated when she was a baby, so she and her brother were raised by her mother in Palisades, New York. They moved back to Los Angeles when Jolie was eleven, and she enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute so she could try acting, and then on to Beverly Hills High School, where she never felt like she fit in. Jolie experimented with cutting herself to mask or release the emotional pain she felt.
She did some fashion modeling, appeared in music videos, and later earned a role in a small film,
Cyborg 2. Her first larger Hollywood role was in the film
Hackers (1995). Other film roles followed, many of the movies themselves forgettable, but Jolie’s skilled performances were not. Respect came when she played Cornelia Wallace in the made for TV film,
George
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