Angelina Jolie is an award-winning movie actress, former model, and UN Good Will Ambassador. She is popularly cited as “The Most Beautiful Woman” in the world by the media.

Quick Facts

Nickname: Angie, AJ

Date of Birth: 4^th June, 1975

Place of Birth:  Los Angeles, California

Origin: Dutch and French Canadian

Profession: Actress, Director, Producer, Writer, Humanitarian

Known for: Awards-winning Actress

Website: www.angelinajolieweb.org

 Childhood and Growing Years

She was born Angelina Jolie Voight in LA, California into a family of actors. Her father Jon Voight, was an actor (who later won an Academy Award and also a Golden Globe) and Marcheline Bertrand, who was also an actress. She has an older brother James Haven, who is also currently an actor/producer. Her parents separated a year after her birth, and her mother gave up her acting career to raise her children.

She was a movie buff since childhood, and regularly used to watch movies with her mother, which she later said inspired her to become an actress. She collected snakes and other reptiles as a child; she was always fascinated by them. She had many pet lizards and snakes, and she named her favorite lizard Vladimir, and her fav pet snake Harry Dean Stanton. She appeared as a child actor in her first movie alongside her father – Lookin’ to Get Out. She enrolled in acting classes at age eleven and trained there for two years, appearing in various stage shows.

She started working as a model at the age of fourteen, landing modeling projects in New York, Los Angeles and London. She aspired to become a funeral director, and it was during this time that she wore black all the time, and expanded her knife collection and experimented with drugs.

She graduated from Beverly Hills High School, and admitted to always having felt out of place among the kids who came from rich backgrounds.

She suffered from bouts of suicidal depression when she was a teenager, and this continued throughout her early twenties. She started experimenting with drugs, and by the time she had turned 20, she had already tried all the drugs available on the street, and had started cutting herself. She attributes that to being unable to emotionally connect with anyone, saying that cutting herself, and feeling the pain, made her feel alive. She always had a complicated relationship with her dad, as she blamed his infidelity for destroying her parents’ marriage.

Claim to Fame

She started starring in her brother’s student films when she was a teenager. She started to learn from her father, how he used to observe people so that he can act like them.

She officially began her career in movies in 1993, with her debut in Cyborg 2. She was very unhappy with the movie and did not audition for any films for an year. After that, she starred in two movies Without Evidence and Hackers in 1995, both of which failed to impress at the Box Office. For the next 4 years, she appeared in close to 7 movies, all of which were not received well, but her performance was appreciated in most of them.

Her first major breakthrough came when she starred in a biographical movie about George Wallace. She won an Academy Award for her performance in that movie, and after this her career prospects significantly improved. In 1998, she also starred in a HBO series Gia, which portrayed the life of supermodel Gia Carangi. She separated from her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller, and also decided to give up acting as she felt she had nothing more to contribute to the industry. After she gained recognition and after the awards she received, she decided to come back to the acting world.

She starred in many movies until her next big break in 1999 with Girl, Interrupted, to be later followed by a small role in the Nicholas Cage film, Gone in 60 seconds.

Her role as the main protagonist in the 2001 film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, earned her international fame, and though the movie in itself was not well-received by critics, it was an international B.O hit.

After that she starred in a slew of movies, the most notable of which are Original Sin (2001) with Antonio Banderas, a sequel of her Tomb Raider movie, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), and opposite Brad Pitt in the action comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) which went on to become one of the biggest movies of 2005. She also co-starred in a 2008 movie Wanted, which was another international hit.

Presently

The twice divorced Angelina, currently lives with current steady boyfriend, Brad Pitt, with whom she has six children, three of them fathered by Pitt. She gave birth to her first child, Shiloh Nouvel, in 2006 in Namibia. She then had twins, a boy and a girl - Knox Léon, and Vivienne Marcheline in 2008. She also has three adopted children, Maddox (from Cambodia in 2002), Pax (from Vietnam in 2007), and Zahara (from Ethiopia in 2005).

She is currently one of the highest paid Hollywood actresses, and is the most sought after celebrity for brand endorsements. She is associated with major brands like Louis Vuitton and a lot of international brands as well.

She still does a lot of humanitarian work, and makes regular generous contributions to various children-based charities. She has been touted as one of the world’s most beautiful women by People Magazine, and she has been voted one of the sexiest women alive by various others. Her relationship with Brad Pitt has always been the subject of intense media scrutiny, and continues to be so.

Awards and Nominations

She won multiple awards for performances in her movies Gia and Girl, Interrupted. Some of her other notable movies include George Wallace, Playing by Heart, A Mighty Heart and Changeling, all of which earned her nominations for a range of prestigious awards.

She won an Academy Award in 1999 as Best Supporting actress for her role in Girl, Interrupted. She also won three Golden Globe Awards, in three consecutive years – 1998, 1999 and 2000 for Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress and then again for Best Supporting Actress. She also has two Screen Actors Guild Awards to her name.

Personal Quotes

“I don’t believe in guilt, I believe in living on impulse as long as you never intentionally hurt another person, and don’t judge people in your life. I think you should live completely free.”

“Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from over mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.”

“We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”

“I am odd-looking. I sometimes think I look like a funny Muppet.”

“I never felt settled or calm. You can’t really commit to life when you feel that.”

“I’ve realized that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy. When I get logical and I don’t trust my instincts – That’s when I get in trouble.”