Angelina Jolie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Angelina Jolie (
/dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE, born
Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an
American actress, film director, and screenwriter. She has received an
Academy Award, two
Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three
Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by
Forbes in 2009 and 2011.
[2][3] Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a
Special Envoy and former
Goodwill Ambassador for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR). She has often been cited as the world's "most beautiful"
woman, a title for which she has received substantial media attention.
[4][5][6][7]
Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father
Jon Voight in
Lookin' to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production
Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller
Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television 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 wide fame after her portrayal of video game heroine
Lara Croft in
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and established herself among the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood with the sequel
The Cradle of Life (2003).
[8] She continued her action star career with
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005),
Wanted (2008), and
Salt (2010)—her biggest live-action commercial successes to date
[9]—and received further critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas
A Mighty Heart (2007) and
Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an
Academy Award for Best Actress. Jolie made her directorial debut with the wartime drama
In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).
Divorced from actors
Jonny Lee Miller and
Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie now lives with actor
Brad Pitt,
in a relationship notable for fervent media attention. Jolie and Pitt
have three biological children and three adopted children.
Early life and family
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,
[10][11] and on her mother's side, she is of primarily French Canadian, Dutch, and German ancestry.
[10] Like her mother, Jolie has stated that she is part
Iroquois,
[12] although her only known Native ancestor was a
Huron woman born in 1649.
[10]
After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother lived
with their mother, who had abandoned her acting ambitions to focus on
raising her children.
[13]
As a child, Jolie often watched movies with her mother and explained
this had inspired her interest in acting; she stated that she was not
influenced by her father's career.
[14] When she was six years old, her mother and stepfather, filmmaker Bill Day, moved the family to
Palisades, New York;
[15] they returned to Los Angeles five years later. She then 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.
[16]
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.
[14] Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home.
[13]
She graduated from high school and returned to theater studies, 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."
[17]
Jolie suffered episodes of suicidal depression throughout her teens and early twenties.
[16] She felt isolated at
Beverly Hills High School
among the children of some of the area's affluent families, as her
mother survived on a more modest income, and she was teased by other
students, who targeted her for being extremely thin and for wearing
glasses and braces.
[14] She found it difficult to emotionally connect with other people, and as a result she started to
self-harm;
[18]
later commenting, "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."
[19] She also began experimenting with drugs; by the age of 20, she had tried "just about every drug possible," including heroin.
[20]
Jolie has had a difficult relationship with her father. Due to
Voight's marital infidelity and the resulting breakup of her parents'
marriage, she was estranged from her father for many years.
[21] They reconciled and he appeared with her in
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), but their relationship again deteriorated.
[13]
In July 2002, Jolie—who had long used her middle name as a stage name
to establish her own identity as an actress—filed a request to legally
drop Voight as her surname, which was granted on September 12, 2002.
[22] In August of that year, Voight claimed his daughter had "serious mental problems" on
Access Hollywood.
[21]
In response, Jolie released a statement in which she indicated that she
no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father.
[21] She explained that because she had adopted her son Maddox, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight.
[23] In the wake of her beloved mother's death from ovarian cancer on January 27, 2007,
[24] Jolie again reconciled with her father after a six-year estrangement.
[25]
Career
Early work: 1982; 1991–1997
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."
[16] She appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the
USC School of Cinema-Television, as well as in several music videos, namely
Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" (1991);
Antonello Venditti's version of
Crowded House's hit "
Don't Dream It's Over", "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."
[14]
Jolie began her professional film career in 1993, when she played her
first leading role in the low-budget, straight-to-video science-fiction
sequel
Cyborg 2,
as Casella "Cash" Reese, a near-human robot, designed to seduce her way
into a rival manufacturer's headquarters and then self-detonate. Jolie
was so disappointed with the film that she did not audition again for a
year.
[16] Following a supporting role in the independent film
Without Evidence (1995), Jolie starred as Kate "Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture,
Hackers (1995).
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."
[26] The movie failed to make a profit at the box office, but developed a cult following after its video release.
[27]
She next appeared 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
The Bronx, New York. In the road movie
Mojave Moon (1996) she played a young woman who falls for
Danny Aiello's middle-aged character, while he develops feelings for her mother, played by
Anne Archer. That same year, Jolie also portrayed 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 her 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."
[28]
In 1997, Jolie starred with
David Duchovny in the thriller
Playing God, set in the Los Angeles underworld. The movie was not well received by critics;
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
Blossom's girlfriend, and maybe she is."
[29] She then appeared in the television film
True Women (1997), a historical romantic drama set in the American West and based on the book by
Janice Woods Windle. That year, she also appeared as a stripper in the music video for "
Anybody Seen My Baby?" by the
Rolling Stones.
Breakthrough: 1998–2000
Jolie's career prospects began to improve after she won a
Golden Globe Award for her performance in
TNT's
George Wallace (1997). She portrayed
Cornelia Wallace, the second wife of Alabama Governor
George Wallace, played by
Gary Sinise. The film was very well received by critics and won, among other awards, the
Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film. Jolie also received an
Emmy Award nomination for her performance.
In 1998, Jolie starred in
HBO's
Gia, portraying supermodel
Gia Carangi.
The film chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a
result of her addiction to heroin, and her decline and death from AIDS
in the mid-1980s. 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."
[30] For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. She also won her first
Screen Actors Guild Award.
In accordance with
Lee Strasberg's
method acting,
Jolie preferred to stay in character in between scenes during many of
her early films, and as a result had gained a reputation for being
difficult to deal with. While shooting
Gia, she told her then-husband
Jonny Lee Miller that she would not 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.'"
[31] After
Gia wrapped in 1997, Jolie announced that she had given up acting for good, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give."
[32] She separated from Miller and moved to New York, where she enrolled at
New York University to study filmmaking and attend writing classes; she later described it as "just good for me to collect myself."
[32] Encouraged by her Golden Globe Award win for
George Wallace and the positive critical reception of
Gia, she resumed her career.
[16]
Jolie returned to film in the 1998 gangster movie
Hell's Kitchen. Later that year, she appeared in
Playing by Heart, part of an ensemble cast that included
Sean Connery,
Gillian Anderson,
Ryan Phillippe, and
Jon Stewart. 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."
[33] Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
In 1999, she starred in the comedy-drama
Pushing Tin, alongside
John Cusack,
Billy Bob Thornton, and
Cate Blanchett.
The film received a mixed reception from critics, and Jolie's
character—Thornton's seductive wife—was particularly criticized.
The Washington Post
wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie) [is] 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."
[34] She then co-starred with
Denzel Washington in
The Bone Collector (1999), an adaptation of a crime novel by
Jeffery Deaver.
Jolie played a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide, who
reluctantly helps Washington track down a serial killer. The movie
grossed $151 million worldwide,
[9] but was a critical failure. The
Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."
[35]
"Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim."
Jolie next took the supporting role of the
sociopathic mental patient Lisa Rowe in
Girl, Interrupted (1999), an adaptation of author
Susanna Kaysen's
memoir of the same name. While
Winona Ryder
played the main character in what was hoped to be a comeback for her,
the film instead marked Jolie's final breakthrough in Hollywood.
[37] She won her third Golden Globe Award, her second Screen Actors Guild Award, and 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."
[38]
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."
[39]
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 to that point, earning $237 million internationally.
[9]
International success: 2001–2005
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 an English 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."
[40] The movie was an international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide,
[9] and launched her global reputation as a female action star.
Jolie then starred opposite
Antonio Banderas as his mail-order bride in
Original Sin (2001), 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."
[41] In 2002, she starred in
Life or Something Like It
as an ambitious television 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."
[42]
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.
[8] The sequel was not as lucrative as the original, earning $156 million at the international box office.
[9] She appeared in the music video for
Korn's "
Did My Time", which was used to promote the film. She next starred in
Beyond Borders
(2003), as a socialite who joins aid workers in Africa and Asia. The
film reflected Jolie's real-life interest in promoting humanitarian
relief, but it 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."
[43]
In 2004, Jolie starred alongside
Ethan Hawke in the thriller
Taking Lives.
She portrayed 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."
[44] She also provided the voice of the angelfish Lola in the
DreamWorks animated movie
Shark Tale (2004), and had a brief appearance in
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), a science fiction adventure film shot entirely with actors in front of a
bluescreen. That same year, Jolie played
Olympias in
Alexander, about the life of
Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, which director
Oliver Stone attributed to disapproval of the depiction of Alexander's bisexuality,
[45] but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United States.
[9]
Continued success: 2005–2011
Jolie then starred opposite
Brad Pitt in the 2005 action-comedy
Mr. & Mrs. Smith,
which tells the story of a bored married couple, John and Jane Smith,
who find out that they are both secret assassins. The film received
mixed reviews, but was 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."
[46] The movie earned $478 million worldwide, making it the seventh-highest grossing film of 2005.
[47]
Jolie next appeared in
Robert De Niro's
The Good Shepherd (2006), a film about the early history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of Edward Wilson, an officer based on
James Jesus Angleton and played by
Matt Damon. Jolie played the supporting role of Margaret "Clover" Russell, Wilson's neglected wife. According to the
Chicago Tribune,
"Jolie ages convincingly throughout, and is blithely unconcerned with
how her brittle character is coming off in terms of audience sympathy."
[48]
In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary
A Place in Time, which captures daily life in 27 locations around the world during a single week. The film was screened at the
Tribeca Film Festival and was intended for distribution to high schools through the
National Education Association.
[49] Jolie then starred as
Mariane Pearl in the documentary-style drama
A Mighty Heart (2007). Based on Pearl's
memoir of the same name, the film chronicles the kidnapping and murder of her husband,
The Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan.
The Hollywood Reporter described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving," played "with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult accent."
[50] Jolie was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. She also played
Grendel's mother in the animated epic
Beowulf (2007), which was created through the
motion capture technique.
Jolie co-starred alongside
James McAvoy and
Morgan Freeman in the 2008 action movie
Wanted, an adaptation of
Mark Millar's
graphic novel of the same name. The film received predominately favorable reviews and proved an international success, earning $342 million worldwide.
[9] She also provided the voice of
Master Tigress in the DreamWorks animated movie
Kung Fu Panda (2008). With revenue of $632 million internationally, it became the third-highest grossing film of 2008.
[51] That same year, Jolie took on the lead role in
Clint Eastwood's drama
Changeling.
[52] Based in part on the
Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, the film stars Jolie as
Christine Collins, who is reunited with her kidnapped son in 1928 Los Angeles—only to realize the boy is an impostor. The
Chicago Tribune
noted, "Jolie really shines in the calm before the storm, the scenes
[...] when one patronizing male authority figure after another belittles
her at their peril."
[53] Jolie received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a
BAFTA Award.
Jolie next starred in the 2010 thriller
Salt, her first film in two years. She starred alongside
Liev Schreiber as CIA agent Evelyn Salt, who goes on the run after she is accused of being a KGB
sleeper agent. Originally written as a male character, Salt underwent a gender change after a
Columbia Pictures executive suggested Jolie for the role to director
Phillip Noyce. The film was an international success with revenues of $294 million.
[9] It received mixed to positive reviews, with Jolie's performance earning praise;
Empire remarked, "When it comes to selling incredible, crazy, death-defying antics, Jolie has few peers in the action business."
[54]
She also starred opposite
Johnny Depp in
The Tourist (2010), which was a major critical failure.
Peter Travers wrote, "Depp and Jolie hit career lows, producing the chemistry of high-fashion zombies."
[55] Roger Ebert defended Jolie, stating she "does her darndest" and "plays her femme fatale with flat-out, drop-dead sexuality."
[56]
Despite the general criticism, after a slow start at the domestic box
office, the film went on to gross a respectable $278 million worldwide.
[9]
Jolie received a controversial Golden Globe Award nomination for her
performance, which gave rise to speculation that it had been given
merely to ensure her high-profile presence at the awards ceremony.
[57][58]
2011–present
In 2011, Jolie reprised her voice role as Master Tigress in the animated DreamWorks sequel
Kung Fu Panda 2.
It became the fourth-highest grossing film of 2011 and Jolie's highest
grossing film to date, earning $666 million at the international box
office.
[9][59] She also made her directorial feature debut with
In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), a love story between a Serb soldier and a Bosniak prisoner of war, set during the 1992–95
Bosnian War. Jolie, who had twice visited Bosnia-Herzegovina in her capacity as a
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, explained that she made the film to rekindle attention for the survivors of a war that took place in recent history.
[60]
The film, which Jolie also scripted and co-produced, aroused both
praise and criticism in the Balkans; the response from Bosniak
war-victims advocacy organizations was "overwhelmingly positive,"
[61] while a Serb war prisoners group decried the film for its alleged anti-Serb bias.
[62] Sarajevo's regional government named Jolie an honorary citizen of the capital for raising awareness of the war.
[63] In the Land of Blood and Honey won the
Stanley Kramer Award from the
Producers Guild of America, which honors films that highlight provocative social issues.
[64] It also received a nomination for a
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Jolie will play the Disney villain
Maleficent in the upcoming
film of the same name, where the character's background story will be revealed.
[65]
In February 2013, it was announced that Jolie will be teaming up with the
Coen brothers to tell the story of World War II hero
Louis Zamperini. The brothers are set to rewrite
Unbroken, the adaptation of the 2010 book by
Laura Hillenbrand. Jolie is set to direct the film.
[66]
Humanitarian work
"We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact
that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to
help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we
all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of
us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone
would help us."
—Jolie on her motives for joining
UNHCR in 2001
[67]
Jolie stated that she first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) in Cambodia.
[68] She contacted the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for information on international trouble spots.
[67]
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.
[67] In the following months, she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
[69][70]
She covered all costs related to her missions and shared the same
rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of
her visits.
[67] Jolie was named a
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador at UNHCR headquarters in
Geneva on August 27, 2001.
[71]
Since then, Jolie has been on field missions around the world and met with refugees and
internally displaced persons in more than 30 countries.
[72]
Asked what she hoped 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."
[69] Jolie aims to visit what she terms "forgotten emergencies," crises that media attention has shifted away from.
[73] She is noted for not shying away from traveling to areas that are at war:
[74] She visited the
Darfur region of Sudan during the
Darfur conflict in 2004;
[75] Pakistan with
Brad Pitt to see the impact of the
2005 Kashmir earthquake in 2005;
[76] Chad during its
civil war in 2007;
[77] Iraq during the
Second Gulf War in 2007 and 2009;
[78][79] Afghanistan during the
ongoing war in 2008 and 2011;
[80] and Libya during the
Libyan revolution in 2011.
[81]
After more than a decade of service as Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie was promoted to the rank of
Special Envoy of High Commissioner António Guterres on April 17, 2012. As Special Envoy, she represents the UNHCR and High Commissioner
António Guterres
at the diplomatic level and works to facilitate long-term solutions for
people displaced by large-scale crises, such as Afghanistan and
Somalia. "This is an exceptional position reflecting an exceptional role
she has played for us," said a UNHCR spokesman.
[82]
In addition to her work with the UNHCR, Jolie uses her public profile
to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. Her early field
visits were chronicled in her book
Notes from My Travels, which was published in conjunction with the release of her film
Beyond Borders (2003). She filmed a 2005
MTV special,
The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist
Dr. Jeffrey Sachs
on a trip to a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. Jolie has
also regularly released public service announcements promoting
World Refugee Day and other causes.
Over time, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian
causes on a political level. She has regularly attended World Refugee
Day in Washington, D.C., and she was an invited speaker at the
World Economic Forum in
Davos in 2005 and 2006. She also began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of
Congress
at least 20 times between 2003 and 2006, during which she pushed for
several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World
and the United States.
[71] She explained in 2006, "As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball."
[71] In 2007, she became a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
[83]
Jolie has established several charitable organizations. In 2003, she
founded the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation—named the Maddox Jolie Project
until 2007—which is dedicated to community development and environmental
conservation in Cambodia's northwestern province
Battambang.
[84]
In 2006, she partnered with the Global Health Committee to establish
the Maddox Chivan Children's Center, a daycare facility for children
afflicted and affected by HIV in the Cambodian capital
Phnom Penh.
[85] That same year, she and her partner
Brad Pitt founded the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes worldwide.
[86] In 2007, Jolie and noted economist
Dr. Gene Sperling
founded the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which funds
education programs for children affected by man-made or natural
disasters.
[87] In 2008, she collaborated with the
Microsoft Corporation
to establish Kids in Need of Defense, a pro bono movement of law firms,
corporate law departments, NGOs and volunteers committed to providing
legal counsel to unaccompanied immigrant children in the U.S.
[88]
In 2010, she established the Jolie Legal Fellows Programme, which
recruits lawyers to support governmental child protection efforts in
Haiti.
[89]
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2002, she received the inaugural Humanitarian Award by the
Church World Service's Immigration and Refugee Program.
[90] In 2003, she was the first recipient of the
Citizen of the World Award by the
United Nations Correspondents Association. In 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the
UNA-USA.
[91] On July 31, 2005, King
Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country.
[92] In 2007, Jolie received the
Freedom Award by the
International Rescue Committee.
[93]
In 2011, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres
presented Jolie with a gold pin reserved for the most long-serving
staff, in recognition of her decade as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.
[94]
Personal life
Relationships
Jolie had a serious boyfriend for two years from the age of 14. Her
mother allowed them to live together in her home, of which Jolie later
said, "I was either going to be reckless on the streets with my
boyfriend or he was going to be with me in my bedroom with my mom in the
next room. She made the choice, and because of it, I continued to go to
school every morning and explored my first relationship in a safe way."
[95]
She has 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.
[96]
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.
[16]
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.
[97]
Jolie and Miller separated in September 1997 and divorced on February
3, 1999. They 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."
[98]
Jolie had a brief relationship with model-actress
Jenny Shimizu on the set of
Foxfire
(1996). She later said, "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."
[99]
Shimizu claimed in 2005 that her relationship with Jolie had lasted
many years and continued even while Jolie was romantically involved with
other people.
[100]
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!"
[101]
After a two-month courtship, Jolie married actor
Billy Bob Thornton on May 5, 2000, in Las Vegas. They met on the set of
Pushing Tin (1999), but did not pursue a relationship at that time as Thornton was engaged to actress
Laura Dern.
[102]
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 marriage became a favorite topic of the
entertainment media.
[103]
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. Asked 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."
[104]
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). She denied this on several occasions, but later admitted that they "fell in love" on the set.
[105]
She explained in 2005, "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."
[101] 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.
[106] Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012, after seven years together.
[107] The couple—dubbed "
Brangelina" by the entertainment media—are the subject of worldwide media coverage.
[108]
Children
On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, seven-month-old Maddox Chivan, from an orphanage in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
[109] He was born as Rath Vibol on August 5, 2001, in a local village.
[110] Jolie applied for adoption after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and on a
UNHCR
field mission. The adoption process was halted in December 2001 when
the U.S. government banned adoptions from Cambodia amid allegations of
child trafficking.
[111] Once the adoption was finalized, she took custody of Maddox in Namibia, where she was filming
Beyond Borders (2003).
[111]
Although Jolie and her then-husband Billy Bob Thornton announced the
adoption together, she in fact adopted Maddox as a single parent.
[112][113]
Jolie adopted a daughter, six-month-old Zahara Marley, from an orphanage in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 6, 2005. Zahara was born as Yemsrach on January 8, 2005, in
Awasa.
[114] At the time of the adoption, Zahara was wrongly believed to be an
AIDS orphan and it was unknown whether she herself had contracted HIV, but she later tested negative.
[115] Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition.
[115]
In November 2007, media outlets reported that Zahara's biological
mother wanted her daughter back, but she denied these reports, saying
she thought Zahara was "very fortunate" to have been adopted by Jolie.
[114]
Jolie was accompanied by her partner Brad Pitt when she traveled to Ethiopia to take custody of Zahara.
[116] She later indicated that she and Pitt had made the decision to adopt from Ethiopia together.
[117] In December 2005, Pitt's publicist announced that Pitt was seeking to adopt Maddox and Zahara.
[118]
To reflect this, Jolie filed a request to legally change her children's
surnames from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt, which was granted on January 19,
2006.
[119] The adoptions were finalized soon after.
[120]
In an attempt to avoid the media frenzy surrounding their
relationship, Jolie and Pitt went to Namibia for the birth of their
first biological child. On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter,
Shiloh Nouvel, in
Swakopmund. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would have a Namibian passport.
[121] The couple decided to sell the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor
Getty Images themselves, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these valuable photographs.
People paid a reported $4.1 million for the North American rights, while
Hello! obtained the British rights for a reported $3.5 million.
[122] All profits were donated to charities serving African children.
[122]
On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a son, three-year-old Pax Thien, from an orphanage in
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
[123] He was born as Pham Quang Sang on November 29, 2003, in HCMC, where he was abandoned soon after birth.
[124] Jolie adopted Pax as a single parent, because Vietnam's adoption regulations do not allow unmarried couples to co-adopt.
[123] The rights for the first post-adoption images of Pax were sold to
People for a reported $2 million, as well as to
Hello! for an undisclosed amount.
[125]
In April, Jolie filed a request to legally change her son's surname
from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt, which was approved on May 31, 2007.
[126] Pitt's adoption of Pax was finalized in the United States on February 21, 2008.
[127]
At the
Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins. For the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in
Nice, France, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade.
[128] She gave birth to a son, Knox Léon, and a daughter, Vivienne Marcheline, on July 12, 2008.
[129] The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to
People and
Hello! for a reported $14 million—
the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The proceeds were donated to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.
[129]
Cancer prevention treatment
On February 16, 2013, at the age of 37, Jolie underwent a
preventive double
mastectomy after learning she had an 87% risk of developing
breast cancer due to a defective
BRCA1 gene.
[130] Her family history warranted
genetic testing for
BRCA mutations: her mother, actress
Marcheline Bertrand,
had breast cancer and died from ovarian cancer at the age of 56, while
her maternal grandmother had ovarian cancer and died aged 45.
[10][131]
Her maternal aunt Debbie Martin, who had the same defective BRCA1 gene
as Jolie, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and died at age 61 on
May 26, 2013.
[132][133]
Jolie's mastectomy lowered her chances of developing breast cancer to
under 5 percent, and testing of the removed breast tissue showed no
signs of cancerous cells.
[134] On April 27, Jolie had reconstructive surgery involving
implants and
allografts.
[131] She reportedly intends to undergo a preventive
oophorectomy, as she still has a 50% risk of developing
ovarian cancer due to the same genetic anomaly.
[135]
"I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women
who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It
is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if
they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong
options."
—Jolie on her reasons for speaking out about her mastectomy
[130]
Jolie kept news of her mastectomy private until she had completed the three-month process. On May 14,
The New York Times published an
op-ed
titled "My Medical Choice" in which Jolie wrote about her decision and
procedures, with the aim of helping other women make informed health
choices.
[130] To that end, her treatment regimen was posted on the website of the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where she was treated.
[131] In her piece—published concurrently with
U.S. Supreme Court deliberations on BRCA gene
patent rights held by
Myriad Genetics[136]—Jolie acknowledged the largely prohibitive cost of BRCA gene testing and advocated wider accessibility.
[137]
Jolie's announcement drew extensive public attention; a
Time
cover story titled "The Angelina Effect" observed that Jolie brought
"genetic testing in the spotlight," and noted her ability to influence
people on a large scale.
[138] Various public figures applauded Jolie for her decision;
[139] UK foreign secretary William Hague, who visited refugee camps in
Congo-Kinshasa with Jolie in March, called her "an inspiration to many."
[140] Most medical experts who weighed in publicly agreed that Jolie made the right choice for herself,
[141]
but differed in their response to its expected influence on the public.
Her decision was met with praise from health campaigners, who welcomed
her raising awareness of the options available to those at risk,
[140] while other experts feared a widespread overestimation of BRCA mutation occurrence,
[138] as less than 1% of all women carry this genetic condition,
[142] and a misunderstanding of the risks involved for those who do test positive.
[138] Eric Topol, a
geneticist and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in
California,
told attendees at a genetics symposium "This is the moment that will
propel genomic medicine forward", saying that Jolie's announcement was
"incredibly important symbolically".
[143]
In the media
Jolie at the New York premiere of
A Mighty Heart in 2007; several of her tattoos are visible
During the first decade of her career, Jolie—who does not employ a publicist or an agent
[144]—maintained a "wild child" persona in her communication with the media. She openly discussed her love life, including her
bisexuality and her interest in
BDSM.
[18] After she kissed her brother during the
Academy Awards in 2000, their close relationship became the subject of tabloid media speculation, which she dismissed.
[145]
She spoke about her experiences with drugs and depression, and recalled
the time, in 1997, when she almost hired a hitman to kill her, as well
as the three days, just before her marriage to
Billy Bob Thornton, that she was sectioned at
UCLA's psychiatric ward.
[16] By the mid-2000s, Jolie's involvement with the
UNHCR
and the adoption of her son Maddox had transformed her public image
from Hollywood eccentric into humanitarian and devoted mother.
[110][144]
Jolie has attracted notable media attention for her physical
appearance—particularly her full lips and her many tattoos, being her
most distinctive features. She has been named the world's "most
beautiful" or "sexiest" woman by various media outlets, including
Vogue in 2002,
[4] Esquire in 2004,
[146] American
FHM and British
Harper's Bazaar in 2005,
[5][147] People and
Hello! in 2006,
[6][148] Empire in 2007,
[149] and
Vanity Fair in 2009.
[7] People named her one of 2012's Most Beautiful at Every Age.
[150]
Jolie's extensive collection of tattoos has often been addressed by
interviewers. She has fourteen known tattoos, among which the Latin
proverb "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me destroys me),
the
Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages," two
sak yant
designs featuring a prayer of protection and a
twelve-inch-by-eight-inch tiger, and seven sets of geographical
coordinates indicating the birthplaces of her children and her partner
Brad Pitt.
[151][152]
Over time, she has covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including
the name of her second husband, "Billy Bob", and the Chinese characters
"死" (death) and "勇" (courage).
[151]
Jolie holds a
private pilot license and owns a single-engine
Cirrus SR22 aircraft.
[153][154]
Today, Jolie is one of the best-known celebrities around the world. According to the
Q Score,
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.
[71] In a 2006 global industry survey by
ACNielsen
in 42 international markets, Jolie, together with partner Brad Pitt,
was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products
worldwide.
[155] She was the face of
St. John and
Shiseido from 2006 to 2008, and in 2011 had an endorsement deal with
Louis Vuitton reportedly worth $10 million—a record for a single advertising campaign.
[156] She was among the
Time 100, a list of the most influential people in the world as assembled by
Time, in 2006 and 2008.
[157][158] Forbes
named her Hollywood's highest-paid actress in 2009 and 2011, with
estimated annual earnings of $27 million and $30 million respectively,
[2][3] and she topped the magazine's
Celebrity 100, a ranking of the world's most powerful celebrities, in 2009.
[159]
Filmography
Selected awards
