Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie at the premiere of Alexander in Cologne.

Angelina Jolie at the 2003 World Refugee Day. U.S. State Department photo.

Angelina Jolie, (born Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975, Los Angeles, California, USA) is an American actress who is as renowned for her exotic looks, full lips, wild child image, and tattoos as for her acting ability. She is a respected artist and has received three Golden Globes as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lisa Rowe in the film Girl, Interrupted. Additionally, Jolie has starred in five student films, all of which were directed by her brother James Haven.

Contents

Biography

Jolie, the daughter of actor Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, was born in Los Angeles, California. She is of mainly of French descent with Czech, French-Canadian, and Iroquois descents. As a child she dreamed of becoming a funeral director. She attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute from the age of 11, later attending Beverly Hills High School. Though she enrolled at the film school at New York University after finishing Gia, she did not complete her studies.

Jolie has been long estranged from her father, actor Jon Voight, though a reconciliation was attempted by his appearing with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In the October 2004 issue of Premiere Magazine, Jolie indicated that she was no longer interested in pursuing a relationship with her father. Soon after he exploited a claim that she has "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood, she legally dropped Voight as her last name.

Jolie has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees since 2001, and frequently travels to far-flung countries to draw attention to the plight of people in Third World nations. In 2003, she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries chronicling her early work with the U.N.. In a January 2005 interview (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/01/29/davos.jolie.reut/index.html) with Reuters, Jolie criticized fellow actors for not being committed enough in helping others, and stated that she gives one-third of her income to charitable organizations.

Jolie was also one of the first celebrities to accept an invitation to be one of the bearers of the Olympic Torch during the 2004 Olympic Games, though she was ultimately unable to participate due to filming commitments.

In the fall of 2004, it was reported that Jolie has started proceedings to adopt another child, this time from Russia.

Around the same time, Lauryn Galindo, the Hawaii-based adoption facilitator whose services Jolie had used to adopt Maddox, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to visa fraud and money laundering charges. She had been falsifying records of children to be adopted in visa applications to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and several of the children she placed had not been abandoned at all but were enticed away or bought from their birth families. It does not appear that Maddox was among them, although the investigation is continuing.

Besides her acting and humanitarian endeavors, Jolie also worked as a professional model in London, New York and Los Angeles and appeared in numerous music videos including those of Meat Loaf, Lenny Kravitz, and the Rolling Stones.

For several years prior to 2005, Jolie endured a professional dry spell in which she did not have a hit film. Several of her movies, such as Alexander, Sky Captain, and the second Lara Croft film were major box office disappointments although Jolie usually received good notices. She did provide the voice of Lola in the successful animated film, Shark Tale. Nonetheless her exotic looks and acting talent still make her one of Hollywood's most in-demand actresses.

In early 2005, Jolie found herself at the centre of a well-publicized Hollywood "scandal" when she was accused of being the "other woman" in the marital break-up of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of the spy comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith, something she denies. Although it was reported that she stated that she wanted to date Brad but was waiting for the right time to make a move.

Thanks to a mixture of generally good reviews and advance publicity due to all the rumors, Mr. and Mrs. Smith opened in the No. 1 position at the box office after it was released in early June 2005, providing Jolie with her first box office success in several years.

In March of 2005, Angelina Jolie was named the 3rd sexiest woman in the world by FHM magazine out of 15 million worldwide votes.

Since taking on her goodwill ambassador duties, Jolie has on numerous occasions made public statements that she wants to quit acting and concentrate of her UN work (for example, see Ireland On-Line in June 2005 [1] (http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=145628738&p=y456z9444)). However, she has also stated that her work provides the income necessary for her to continue travelling the world on behalf of the UN.

Jolie continues to balance the demands of being a movie star with that of being a humanitarian, despite an apparently grueling schedule. On June 7, 2005, the Associated Press wire service reported on Jolie giving a presentation in Islamabad, Pakistan. That very same day, she attended the premiere of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in Los Angeles.

She now lives full-time in Buckinghamshire, UK and reportedly plans to purchase property in Cambodia.

Trivia

Tattoos Current:

the letter H (for her brother James Haven) on the inside of her left wrist
"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" (Tennessee Williams) on her left forearm
a dragon on her left arm
a large prayer for her son Maddox on her left shoulder which covers up the Japanese "death" tattoo.
two pointy black tribals on the lower parts of her back
Quod me nutrit me destruit (Latin for "What nourishes me destroys me") several inches below her navel
a tilted Latin cross on the lower left of her abdomen
a large Asian tiger on her back
a dragon under the tiger
a window between the two tribals on her lower back
XIII (number 13 in roman) on her left forearm
Arabic for "strength of will" (ﺍﻟﻌﺰﻳﻤﺔ) on her right forearm
"know your rights" just under her neck between her shoulders

Lasered/Covered:

"Billy Bob", the name of her latest husband Billy Bob Thornton, on her left arm.
a Japanese symbol for courage now covered by the Tennessee Williams quote.
a Japanese symbol for death (死) now covered by a prayer for Maddox
a tattoo both Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina had a copy of. It was on her right forearm, now covered by the "strength of will" tattoo.
a dragon she got in Amsterdam while drunk, now covered by the latin cross.

Jolie has gone on record as saying that a positive effect resulting from the large number of tattoos on her body is that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, filmmakers have been forced to become more creative when plotting any nude or love scenes involving her.

Angelina has been a favorite of Los Angeles sports host Petros Papadakis on his show-ending "Pop Culture Report", but has yet to guest on his program.

She has said she is bisexual.

She claims to have a fondness for Liverpool Football Club, having revealed that her baby son, Maddox, "only wants to play for Liverpool" after he was admitted to Alder Hey Hospital in West Derby for treatment.

She has continually denied rumors of an incestuous relationship with her brother, James Haven. During her acceptance speech for winning the Best Actress in a Supporting Role award for Girl Interrupted during the 2000 Academy Awards, Jolie stated "I'm so in love with my brother" which, combined with her affectionate behavior towards her brother that night, sparked the rumors.