Angelina Jolie

NATIONALITY

American

DATE OF BIRTH

June 4, 1975

HEIGHT

5′ 8″ (1.73 m)

HOBBIES

Reading , Serving People , Playing with Children

FAVORITE COLOR

Black

FAVORITE ANIMALS

Lizards and snakes

Early life:

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the sister of actor James Haven, niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, and goddaughter of actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father's side, Jolie is of German and Slovak descent, and on her mother's side, she is of French Canadian, Dutch, and German ancestry. She has also claimed to be part Iroquois through her mother,although Voight has said that Bertrand was "not seriously Iroquois."

After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother went to live with their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions to focus on raising her children. As a child, Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was six years old, her mother and stepfather, filmmaker Bill Day, moved the family to Palisades, New York;they returned to Los Angeles five years later. She 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.

At the age of 14, Jolie dropped out of her acting classes and aspired to become a funeral director.She began working as a fashion model, modeling mainly in Los Angeles, New York, and London. During this period, she wore black clothing, experimented with knife play, and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend. Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home. She returned to theater studies and graduated from high school a year early, though in recent times she has referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos."

Career:

When she was seven years old, Jolie had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), a movie co-written by and starring her father, Jon Voight. She committed to acting at the age of 16, but initially found it difficult to pass auditions, often being told that she was "too dark." She appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, as well as in several music videos, namely Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" (1991), Antonello Venditti's "Alta Marea" (1991), The Lemonheads's "It's About Time" (1993), and Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" (1993). She began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens.

When she was seven years old, Jolie had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), a movie co-written by and starring her father, Jon Voight. She committed to acting at the age of 16, but initially found it difficult to pass auditions, often being told that she was "too dark."[20] She appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, as well as in several music videos, namely Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" (1991), Antonello Venditti's "Alta Marea" (1991), The Lemonheads's "It's About Time" (1993), and Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" (1993). She began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens.

In 2000, Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster, Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, the ex-girlfriend of car thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, 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."She later explained that the film had been a welcome relief after the emotionally heavy role of Lisa Rowe. It became her highest grossing movie up until then, earning $237 million internationally.

Although highly regarded for her acting abilities, Jolie's films to date had often not appealed to a wide audience, but Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) made her an international superstar. An adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider videogame, Jolie was required to learn a British accent and undergo extensive martial arts training to play the title role of Lara Croft. She was generally praised for her physical performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews. Slant commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but [director] Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger."The movie was an international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide, and launched her global reputation as a female action star.

Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), which established her among Hollywood's highest-paid actresses.

In 2011, Jolie reprised her voice role as Master Tigress in the animated DreamWorks sequel Kung Fu Panda 2. It became her second-highest grossing film to date, earning in excess of $500 million at the international box office. She will also make her directorial feature debut with In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), a love story set during the Bosnian War. The film was shot in October 2010 using local actors and is scheduled for release in December.

Humanitarian work:

Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) in Cambodia. She contacted UNHCR for information on international trouble spots. To learn more about the conditions in these areas, Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world. In February 2001, she went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed her shock at what she had witnessed. In the following months, she returned to Cambodia and met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, where she donated $1 million in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal.

Jolie has established several charitable organizations. In 2003, she founded the Maddox Jolie Project—renamed the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation in 2007—which is dedicated to eradicating extreme rural poverty, protecting natural resources, and conserving wildlife in Cambodia's northwestern province of Battambang, the birthplace of her son Maddox. In 2006, she partnered with Global Health Committee director Dr. Anne Goldfeld to establish the Maddox Chivan Children's Center, a daycare facility for children afflicted and affected by HIV in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. That same year, she and partner Brad Pitt 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. Jolie co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which she co-founded with noted economist Dr. Gene Sperling in 2007; the partnership funds education programs for children affected by conflict. In 2008, she founded Kids in Need of Defense, which provides free legal-aid to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with no legal representation.

Personal life:

Jolie had a serious boyfriend for two years from the age of 14. They lived together in her mother's home, of which she has said, "He was my first boyfriend at a time when I wanted to be promiscuous and was starting to be sexual. We were in my bedroom, in my environment, where I was most comfortable and I wasn't in danger." She later compared the relationship to a marriage in its emotional intensity, and said that the breakup compelled her to dedicate herself to her acting career at the age of 16.

During filming of Hackers (1995), Jolie had a romance with British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her first lover since the relationship in her early teens.

They were not in touch for many months after production ended, but eventually reconnected and married soon after on March 28, 1996. She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white T-shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood.[76] Jolie and Miller separated in September 1997 and divorced on February 3, 1999, but remained on good terms.

Jolie has long acknowledged that she had a brief relationship with model-actress Jenny Shimizu on the set of Foxfire (1996).

After just weeks of dating, Jolie married actor Billy Bob Thornton on May 5, 2000. They met on the set of Pushing Tin (1999)

Jolie and Thornton announced the adoption of a son from Cambodia in March 2002, but abruptly separated three months later. Their divorce was finalized on May 27, 2003. 

In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the reason for the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. She and Pitt were alleged to have started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).

Jolie and Pitt did not publicly comment on the nature of their relationship until January 2006, when Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child.

Awards:

Won:

1998 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television   George Wallace

1998 National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Award Breakthrough Performance Playing by Heart

1999 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Gia

1999 Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Gia

2000 Academy Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Girl, Interrupted

2000 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Girl, Interrupted

2000 Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Girl, Interrupted

Nominated:

1998 Emmy Award Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie George Wallace

1998 Emmy Award Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie        Gia

2008 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama       A Mighty Heart

2008 Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role A Mighty Heart

2009 Academy Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Changeling

2009 BAFTA Award Best Actress in a Leading Role Changeling

2009 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Changeling

2009 Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Changeling

2011 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy The Tourist