Biography

Angelina Jolie, the sultry seductress currently residing in the top spots of Hollywood’s famous celebrities, is known world wide for her breath taking looks and charming screen presence. The actress who is popular both on screen for her work and off screen for her much publicized personal life is also a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. Since her alliance with beau actor Brad Pitt, there have been news stories feigning about the couple’s ousting.

Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975 in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is of Slovak and German descent from her father’s side and on her mother's side she is French Canadian and is said to be part Iroquois. She has a brother named James Haven Voight.

Jolie’s parents separated when she was just one year old so she never got to spend any real time with her father. The family soon shifted base to Palisades, New York as her mother decided to give up on her acting career in order to raise her children. But they soon came back to Los Angels in 1986 where upon Jolie started attending Beverly Hills High School (later Moreno High School). Coming from a rather modest family she often herself pitted against her more affluent peers. She was often teased for her thin physique, her braces and wire rimmed glasses. Jolie found solace in the make believe world of movies and was fascinated by it. This interest was culminated by her watching movies with her mother and she soon enrolled in the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she studied for two years.

There was also a time in Jolie’s life when she found herself inclined towards killing and hurting herself to ease out any mental pain. In fact, she dropped out from her acting classes when she was 14, and joined the punk brand complete with purple dyed hair, black dress and a live in boyfriend. But her dream of becoming an actress soon jolted her back to reality and she carried on with her studies, this time completing them.

Career in Movies

She began working as a fashion model when she was signed on by Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United States and Europe, working mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. She also worked in several music videos namely Meat Loaf ("Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through"), Antonello Venditti ("Alta Marea"), Lenny Kravitz. Two years later, when she was 16, her love of her theatre compelled her to perform as a German dominatrix.

After acting in her brother’s five student movies, she got her first professional debut 1993, when she played her first leading role in the low budget film Cyborg 2, as Casella "Cash" Reese who is a near-human robot designed to seduce her way into a rival manufacturer's headquarters and then self-detonate.

Her first Hollywood venture was, Hackers (1995), followed by 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. She worked in few more movies where her performances were appreciated both by the audience and critics. Some of them were road movie Mojave Moon (1996), Foxfire (1996). The year 1997 saw her working with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God which didn’t do well at the box office. Jolie later that year appeared in the appeared in the TV movie True Women, based on the book by Janice Woods Windle which was a historical romantic drama set in the West.

Things started to shape up for her with the onset of year 1997. Good movies came her way which helped her to showcase her talent and fire to the rest of the world. She essayed the role of Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biopic George Wallace for which she even won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy. In1998. She gave an astounding performance as supermodel Gia Carangi in HBO’s movie Gia.She was widely appreciated for her portrayal of the model’s life that went through many phases including drug addiction and finally death through AIDS. Jolie won her second Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award.

The actress then surprised every one with her decision of taking a break even though she was riding high on the success of Gia. She enrolled into the New York University to study filmmaking and also took writing classes.

Angelina bounced back later in 1998 with gangster movie Hell's Kitchen and Playing by Heart which earned her rave reviews for her act. Her ousting with multi-starrer Pushing Tin (1999) received a lukewarm reception. But Jolie starrer Girl Interrupted (1999) in which she played a socio path brought her back in the eyes of critics raising her bar. Jolie won her third Golden Globe, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She followed this up by Gone In 60 Seconds (2001) opposite Nicolas Cage which became a summer blockbuster.

2001, made Angelina into the international star she is today. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) became an outrage with the crowd and the market was flooded with Tomb raider games and merchandise. The movie however didn’t got any positive reviews.

Nor did it’s sequel in 2003 by the name of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

She next starred with Antonio Banderas Original Sin, a thriller based on the novel Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich, Beyond Borders, a film about aid workers in Africa (2003), Taking Lives, a brief appearance in Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and played Olympias in Alexander (2004), Oliver Stone’s biopic about the life of Alexander the Great. The movie got mixed reviews and Jolie was jolted out of her reverie.

2005 saw her starring opposite her future husband Brad Pitt in action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The chemistry between the two was widely appreciated. Then came a series of movies Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), and a chance to shoot her own documentary A Place in Time, which captures the life in 27 locations around the globe during a single week and features fellow actors such as Jude Law, Hilary Swank, Colin Farrell and Jonny Lee Miller. In addition, there is Wanted, Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Angelina married two times, first to British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers in March 28, 1996 (divorce in 1999) and to American actor Billy Bob Thornton in 2000(divorce in 2003). She has also declared herself being a bisexual and currently in a relationship with actor Brad Pitt. In fact, she was being given the title of the other woman responsible for Brad and Jennifer Aniston split. Jolie has adopted three children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, and has biological child, Shiloh with Pitt.

The coming years will see her performing some of the best roles providing entertainment and quality cinema to the sour eyes of viewers.