Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie (born
Angelina Jolie Voight on
June 4,
1975) is an
Academy Award-winning
American actress, a former fashion
model, and a
Goodwill Ambassador for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She is also known for her great beauty
[Most Beautiful People of 2006, People Magazine.] as well as her tumultuous off-screen life. She has received three
Golden Globes, two
Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as an
Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Jolie started her acting career with the
low budget production
Cyborg 2 in
1993 and had her first leading role in a major film in
1995's
Hackers. She went on to appear in the critically acclaimed
biopics George Wallace and
Gia and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama
Girl, Interrupted. Jolie achieved international fame for her portrait of videogame heroine
Lara Croft in
2001 and since then established herself as one of the best known and highest paid actresses in
Hollywood.
[Biography of Angelina Jolie, IMDb.com] She had her biggest commercial success with the
2005 action comedy
Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Jolie has been married twice â€" to actors
Jonny Lee Miller and
Billy Bob Thornton â€" and she currently lives together with fellow actor
Brad Pitt, a relationship that sparked an unprecedented worldwide media frenzy.
[The Brangelina fever, theage.com.au] Jolie and Pitt have two adopted children,
Maddox and
Zahara, and a biological child,
Shiloh. Since 2001 Jolie is well known for promoting humanitarian causes around the globe, most prominently for her work with
refugees through
UNHCR.
Born in
Los Angeles,
California, Jolie is the daughter of actors
Jon Voight and
Marcheline Bertrand. She is the niece of
Chip Taylor, sister of
James Haven and the goddaughter of
Jacqueline Bisset and
Maximilian Schell. People often assume that Jolie's mother is French, because of her name, but Jolie's grandparents were
French-Canadian. She is of
Czech and
English descent on her father's side, and French-Canadian and
Iroquois on her mother's side.
After her parents'
divorce in
1976, one-year-old Jolie and her older brother James Haven were raised by their mother who had moved with them to
Palisades, New York; one year later Voight won his
Academy Award for Best Actor for
Coming Home. Her mother gave up her dream of becoming an actress to raise Jolie and her older brother.
[Angelina Jolie: Body Beautiful, Vogue, April 2002 issue] As a child Jolie collected snakes and lizards, she had a crush on
Mr. Spock[Angelina Jolie Biography, tiscali.film & TV] and went to the movies regularly with her mother; Jolie later explained this is how she got interested in
acting, not from her father. Though at the age of 7 she did appear in
Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring Voight. When Jolie was 11 the family moved back to Los Angeles. Now Jolie 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. As a student at
Beverly Hills High School, she was not alone in her cinematic ambitions, but felt like an outsider in the midst of good-looking, pampered children who teased her for her odd looks and being painfully skinny, for wearing
braces, glasses and
second-hand clothes, since unlike the other parents, her mother was not rich.
[Angelina Jolie Biography, tiscali.film & TV] Her confidence was further damaged when her initial attempts at
modelling proved unsuccessful. As a result Jolie grew increasingly unhappy, felt worthless and started to
cut herself; something she speaks openly about today, e.g. during her appearance on
Inside the Actors Studio. At 14, Jolie dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a
funeral director.
[Chris Heath. Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic. Rolling Stone. July 2001. Retrieved 8 April 2006.] She started a life of fast-living and active self-loathing, wore black, dyed her hair purple and went out
moshing with her live-in boyfriend.
[Angelina Jolie Biography, tiscali.film & TV] Two years later, as the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's place.
[Angelina Jolie: Body Beautiful, Vogue, April 2002 issue] She went back to
theatre and graduated
high school, but even today Jolie likes to point out:
"I am still at heart just a punk kid with tattoos".
[Angelina Jolie: Quotes, Angelina Jolie Community] Jolie has been long estranged from her father â€" mainly because she blames his cheating on her mother for the break up of their family â€" 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
[Premiere Magazine - Angelina Jolie, Premiere Magazine, October 2004], but later explained she did not hate him because she realized that
"...we only have so much energy in this life".
[Jolie's Dad: 'I Haven't Seen Shiloh', People.com, July 11, 2006] Soon afterwards, he claimed that she has
"serious emotional problems" on
Access Hollywood, and she legally dropped Voight as her last name, taking "Angelina Jolie" as her legal name. She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for not having a relationship with her father, but since she had just adopted her son Maddox, that she did not think it was healthy for her to be around him.
[Premiere Magazine - Angelina Jolie, Premiere Magazine, October 2004] Voight has not met his grandchildren.
[Jolie's Dad: 'I Haven't Seen Shiloh', People.com, July 11, 2006]Early work
Before Jolie began a career as an
actress, she was a
model who was signed with
Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the
United States and
Europe, working mainly in in
Los Angeles,
New York and
London. She also appeared in numerous
music videos, including those of
Korn ("Did My Time"),
Meat Loaf ("Rock'n'Roll Dreams Come Through"),
Lenny Kravitz ("Stand by My Woman") and
The Rolling Stones ("Anybody Seen My Baby"). At the age of 16 Jolie went back to theatre. Now committed to acting, her first role was a German
dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, as she noticed how he would observe people to become like them. At that time she stopped fighting with him so much, realising that they were both "drama queens".
[Angelina Jolie Biography, tiscali.film & TV] Jolie had appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the
USC School of Cinema-Television, but her movie career properly began in
1993, when she got her first leading role as
Casella "Cash" Reese in the
low budget film Cyborg 2, playing a near-human
robot, designed to seduce her way into the headquarters of her creators' rivals and blow up. Following several undistinguished projects she starred as
Kate "Acid Burn" Libby in her first
Hollywood picture, the
1995 film
Hackers where she met her first
husband Jonny Lee Miller.
The New York Times wrote, "Within this group, 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."
[Hackers - Review, The New York Times, September 15, 1995] The movie failed to make a profit at the
box-office, but has developed a cult following from its video release.
Now roles started coming fast for Jolie. In
1996 she starred with
David Duchovny in the stylish thriller
Playing God portraying a famed LA surgeon who is stripped of his medical license and is lured deep into the criminal world where he meets Jolie's character
Claire. The movie wasn't received well by critics and
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 [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is."
[Reviews : Playing God, Chicago Sun-Times, October 17, 1997] In the little known
road movie Mojave Moon she was a youngster, named
Eleanor Rigby, who falls for
Danny Aiello, while he takes a shine to her mother,
Anne Archer. Still in 1996 she played
Margret 'Legs' Sadovskyone, 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 Jolies 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."
[calendarlive.com: MOVIE REVIEW - Foxfire, The Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1996] Jolie then appeared in the
1997 TV movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the West, based on the book by
Janice Woods Windle.
Breakthrough
Jolie achieved wider recognition after being nominated for an
Emmy and picking up a
Golden Globe Award for her role as
Cornelia Wallace in the
1997 biopic George Wallace. The film was highly praised by
critics and, among others, received the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries/Motion Picture made for TV. She played the second wife of the segregationist Governor of Alabama who was shot and paralyzed while running for President. The film starred
Gary Sinise and was directed by
John Frankenheimer.
In
1998 Jolie starred in
Gia, another biopic, this time of
Gia Carangi, a lesbian
supermodel from the 1970s. The film was written by
Jay McInerney and
Michael Cristofer, and directed by Cristofer. This was crammed with sex, drugs and fearsome emotional drama, as Carangi crashed, burned and was eventually taken by
AIDS. 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 â€" filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation â€" and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed."
[Gia (1998), Reel.com] For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She also won her first
Screen Actors Guild Award. At the Golden Globes, by way of celebration, she jumped into a swimming-pool, clad in a hand-beaded Randolph Duke gown.
[Angelina Jolie Biography, tiscali.film & TV] Jolie then returned to the
big screen. She played
Gloria McNeary the the
1998 gangster movie
Hell's Kitchen and later that year headlined an ensemble cast that included
Sean Connery,
Gena Rowlands,
Anthony Edwards,
Gillian Anderson,
Ryan Phillippe, and
Madeline Stowe in
Playing by Heart. The drama tells the story of several seemingly unconnected characters, with Jolie playing the young club-scene hipster
Joan. 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."
[`Heart' Barely Misses a Beat, Small life stories come together, San Francisco Chronicle, January 22, 1999], while
The New York Times commented, "Much of [the movie's] sweetness emanates from Ms. Jolie, who conveys the vulnerability beneath the hard-shell glamour of a restless leonine beauty prowling the L.A. singles scene."
[Playing by Heart - Review, The New York Times, January 22, 1999] In
1999 she starred in the
Mike Newell's comedy-drama
Pushing Tin, about two air traffic controllers who engage in macho conflict, co-starring alongside
John Cusack,
Billy Bob Thornton, and
Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's wife
Mary Bell, a sexy woman who sends the guys crazy and sleeps with Cusack. Jolie would later marry her co-star Thornton. The film got a lukewarm reception from critics, with Jolie's character being particularly criticized. The
Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), 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."
['Pushing Tin' (R), Washinton Post, April 23, 1999 ] She then worked with
Denzel Washington in
The Bone Collector, an adapted crime novel written by
Jeffery Deaver. Jolie plays
Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide who is reluctant to help Washington tracking down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide, but was a critical failure; the
Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."
[The Bone Collector, Rotten Tomatoes]Then, Jolie took the supporting role of
Lisa Rowe alongside
Winona Ryder in
Girl, Interrupted, a film that tells the story of female mental patient
Susanna Kaysen that was adapted from her original memoir 'Girl Interrupted'. The movie was supposed to be a return to dramatic form for Ryder, but instead became the welcome-to-
Hollywood coronation for Jolie.
Roger Ebert noted "Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim"
[Reviews : Girl, Interrupted, Chicago Sun-Times, January 14, 2000] and
Variety wrote about her performance, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation."
[Variety.com - Reviews - Girl, Interrupted, Variety, Dec. 10, 1999] For her portrait of wild-girl inmate Lisa she won her third Golden Globe, her second Screen Actors Guild Award as well as an
Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress.
In
2000 Jolie appeared in her first summer
blockbuster Gone In 60 Seconds, where she played
Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of super-car-thief
Nicolas Cage. She did not have much screen time 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."
['Gone in 60 Seconds': Lost in the Exhaust, Washington Post, June 9, 2000 ] She later explained that the film was a welcome relief from all the heavy roles she played before and it would turn out to be her highest grossing movie up until then, with $237 million internationally.
Superstardom
Following her Oscar success, Jolie was a well respected actress in Hollywood, but it was the
2001 videogame adaptation
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider that made her an international
superstar. To play videogame heroine
Lara Croft, she had to master a British accent and extensive
martial arts training which she managed convincingly. Jolie was generally praised for her physical performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews.
Slant Magazine commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but director Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger."
[Film Review - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, slant magazine, 2001. ] The movie was a huge international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide and started her reputation as the top female action star. She earned a reported $7 million which put her into the highest league of female actresses.
[Biography of Angelina Jolie, IMDb.com]Jolie then starred alongside
Antonio Banderas as the mail order bride
Julia Russell in
Original Sin, 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."
[Original Sin - Review, The New York Times, August 3, 2001] One year later in
2001 she played
Lanie Kerrigan in
Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was reviewed poorly by critics, though Jolie's performance was often emphasized positively.
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."
[Jolie shines in up-and-down 'Life', CNN.com, April 25, 2002]Jolie reprised her role as
Lara Croft in
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life in
2003. The
sequel couldn't achieve the success of the original, but it still was a solid hit with over $156 million at the international box-office. Jolie was paid $12 million for this second installment.
[Biography of Angelina Jolie, IMDb.com] Later that year Jolie starred in
Beyond Borders, a film about
aid workers in
Africa. Although well-intentioned, and reflecting Jolie's real-life interest in promoting humanitarian relief, the film 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."
["Beyond Borders" turns out to be an unreal film about a too-real situation., Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2003] Concurrently with the release of the film, Jolie published
Notes from My Travels.
In
2004 Jolie first starred alongside
Ethan Hawke in the thriller
Taking Lives, where she plays FBI profiler
Illeana Scott who is summoned to help out Canadian law enforcement in Montreal, to 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."
[Taking Lives, The Hollywood Reporter, March 15, 2004] She also lent her voice to
Lola in the animated
DreamWorks movie
Shark Tale; the cast included
Will Smith,
Martin Scorsese,
Renée Zellweger,
Jack Black and
Robert De Niro. Also in 2004, Jolie had a brief appearance as
Franky in
Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a
science fiction adventure film set in New York City in an alternative
1939. It is one of the first movies to be shot with actors entirely in front of a
bluescreen, with all the
sets and nearly all of the props
computer-generated. Jolie then played
Olympias in
Oliver Stone's biopic
Alexander about the life of
Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, mainly due to criticism regarding Alexander's homosexuality, but succeeded internationally with $139 million outside the United States.
Newsday wrote about Jolie's performance, "Jolie is the only one in the picture who seems to be having any fun with her role, and, recalling Joaquin Phoenix's Machiavellian antagonist in 'Gladiator', one misses her whenever she's off-screen."
['Alexander' lacks greatness, Newsday, November 24, 2004]Jolie's only movie of
2005,
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, is also her biggest commercial success to date. The film was directed by
Doug Liman and written by
Simon Kinberg and tells the story about a bored married couple who find out that they're both secret assassins. Jolie starred as
Jane Smith alongside
Brad Pitt. The film was received amicably and generally lauded for the good 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."
[Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Rotten Tomatoes] The movie earned over $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.
Jolie filmed her part in
Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd during the second half of 2005, a movie about the early history of the
CIA through the eyes of Edward Wilson, played by
Matt Damon. Jolie will co-star as
Clover Wilson, Damon's wife who becomes an
alcoholic through the course of the movie. The film is seen as Jolie's return to dramatic roles.
Jolie's confirmed future projects include the animated movies
Beowulf and
Kung Fu Panda, as well as
A Mighty Heart, a film based on the life of
Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan; she will star as Pearl's wife,
Mariane Pearl.
[Jolie to star in Brad Pitt-produced film. MSNBC.com] She is also rumored to be involved in
Sin City 2 as well as the movie adaptation of
Atlas Shrugged, while she will not appear in a third
Tomb Raider movie, as it was falsely reported.
[Brad & Angelina Rebuff Rumors. People.com]On
March 28,
1996 she married
British actor
Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film
Hackers. Jolie attended her wedding in black leather trousers and a white shirt, which had her groom's name painted in her blood on the back. Jolie and Miller subsequently divorced on
February 3,
1999. Jolie then married
American actor
Billy Bob Thornton on
May 5,
2000. As a result of their frequent public declarations of passion and gestures of love (most famously wearing one anothers' blood in vials around their necks), their relationship became a favorite topic of the entertainment media. Jolie and Thornton divorced on
May 27,
2003. Jolie still has good relationships with both of her former husbands.
Jolie has said in interviews that she is
bisexual. In an interview with
Barbara Walters, Jolie said
"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!"[Julian Kesner, Michelle Megna. Angelina, saint vs. sinner. Daily News, L.P. 2 February 2006. Retrieved 8 April 2006.] Jolie has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her
Foxfire co-star
Jenny Shimizu.
"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."[Angelina Quotes, Jolie web]In early
2005, Jolie found herself in the middle of a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the "other woman" in the
divorce of actors
Brad Pitt and
Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an
affair during filming of
Mr. & Mrs. Smith. However, in several interviews she has denied starting an affair with Pitt. In an interview with
Marie Claire, she stated that she
"could not look at herself in the mirror" if she had an affair with a married man, because she has seen what relationships like that did to her mother. Her father has acknowledged that he cheated on Jolie's mother when they were married.
While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented about the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. The first intimate
paparazzi photos emerged in April, one month after Aniston had filed for divorce; the now-famous pictures show Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in
Kenya.
Us Weekly bought the North American rights of these images for $1 million reportedly.
[Pitt and Jolie Hit the Beach, eonline.com] During the summer Jolie and Pitt were seen together increasingly frequently and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple now, dubbing them "Brangelina".
On
January 11,
2006 Jolie confirmed to
People magazine that she is
pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirming their relationship for the first time in public. In the following months the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as
Reuters described it in their story
The Brangelina fever; among others, there were several false
wedding rumors including an alleged imminent wedding in
Laglio,
Italy that was even further ignited by the local mayor and was picked up by many noted news services like the
Associated Press and the
BBC.
[Pitt and Jolie 'to wed in Italy', BBC News]Maddox
On
March 10,
2002, Jolie adopted her first child, Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt. He was born on
August 5,
2001 as Rath Vibol in
Cambodia. He was being housed in a Cambodian orphanage when Jolie saw him for the first time there in a production break for the film
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. After her divorce from her second husband,
Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie received sole custody of Maddox.
|
Jolie and her son Maddox. |
Maddox's name is
Celtic in origin, usually tranlsated as "beneficent".
[Name Meaning of Maddox, pickbabynames.com] Jolie developed many nicknames for him; normally she calls him "Mad", but also "Madness", "
Khmer", "My Love" and even "Psycho." He can reportedly gel his own Mohawk, which Angelina gave him because "he had this crazy hair that stuck straight up. I had to do something with it."
[Maddox Jolie-Pitt Got His Own Stalker, Toronto Fashion Monitor] Maddox, like Jolie's two other children, has gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the
tabloid media; he was named the "cutest celebrity kid"
[Maddox cutest kid, Life Style Extra, 20th July 2006] and has become a fashion icon; whatever he wears flies off shelves.
[Maddox Jolie-Pitt Got His Own Stalker, Toronto Fashion Monitor] In the autumn of
2004, it was reported that Jolie had started proceedings to adopt another child, a 7-month-old boy named Gleb from
Russia[Angelina Jolie Adopts Russian Baby, MosNews article, 18 October 2004, Checked 30 May 2006]. However, no adoption ever took place and Jolie stated that she never intended to adopt a Russian orphan boy. Jolie expressed a deep sadness at the media's exploitation of the child. She said that she was on business through the
United Nations and not looking for a child to adopt. She also mentioned that her son wanted an "
African brother or sister" because of his love of Africa and the work he knows she does in that region.
In March
2005, 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.
[U.S. Families Learn Truth About Adopted Cambodian Children, ABC News] There is no evidence that Maddox was among them, although the investigation is continuing. Maddox was
naturalized as a
United States citizen some time ago, and there is no indication that that will be rescinded.
Zahara
On
July 5,
2005,
People reported that Jolie was in the final stages of adopting a baby girl who was orphaned by
AIDS through the agency
Wide Horizons for Children. Jolie has named her daughter Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt. Zahara was born on
January 8,
2005. A woman in London has been claiming she is Zahara's birth mother since August 2005. Jolie had a lawyer in
London to look into the matter, which proved to be false.
[Anderson Cooper 360 - Angelina Jolie: Her Mission and Motherhood, CNN.com - Transcripts]On
September 28,
2005 while making an appearance to discuss America's financial involvement in fighting AIDS globally on CNN's "
The Situation Room" with
Wolf Blitzer, Jolie stated that her daughter is an "AIDS orphan." By that she means her birth mother died from the disease but her daughter does not have the disease. The birth father of Zahara is not known. Her statement made it clear that the birth mother is indeed dead. In late October 2005, an Ethiopian judge ruled that there is no evidence to suggest that Ms. Jolie would have to file for re-adoption of her daughter Zahara Marley Jolie. The judge ruled that the woman claiming to be her mother is not the birth mother. Earlier in the summer, another woman had come forward claiming to be the grandmother of Zahara. That claim also proved to be false.
American magazine
US Weekly indicated erroneously that Jolie and
Brad Pitt had adopted Zahara together. When the magazine realised its error, the presses were stopped and an apology issued to Jolie and Pitt; printing of the issue resumed with the correction made, though a number of copies with the error were still released to the public. Reportedly Pitt was present when Jolie signed the adoption papers, though the agency later denied that he was present when Jolie picked up her daughter.
[Magazine Apologizes After Jolie Adoption Mix-Up. WENN. 8 July 2005. Retrieved 8 April 2006.] However, in a
CNN interview in
2006 Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara together.
[Anderson Cooper 360 - Angelina Jolie: Her Mission and Motherhood, CNN.com - Transcripts]Zahara's name means "flower" in Swahili;
[{{cite news ]| first = Richard | last = Simpson | title = Angelina and her little angel | work = Daily Mail (London) | publisher = | pages = 9 | page = | date = 2005-09-25 the second name "Marley" comes from late Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley. Zahara's nickname is "Z". Right after she came to the United States, she became so ill with salmonella that she had to spend time in a hospital. Jolie stated that "she was six months and not nine pounds. Her skinâ€"you could squeeze it and it would stick together." Since then, however, Zahara has gained weight well, and the family now calls her "Chubby".
In December 2005 however, it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children. In support of this bid (and as part of legal requirements), Jolie took out classified advertisements in the Los Angeles paper Daily Commerce announcing the name change request, and on January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The children's legal surnames were formally changed to Jolie-Pitt.[Judge says Jolie's children can take Pitt's name. AP. 19 January 2006. Retrieved 8 April 2006.]ShilohOn May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to the couple's third child (first biological), a daughter named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at night at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Shiloh was born by a scheduled caesarean section, due to breech presentation, and Pitt was there to cut her umbilical cord. The couple's Los Angeles obstetrician was assisted by local staff. Shiloh, according to a longstanding translation from the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one."
"Angie and baby are fantastic," a source close to the couple told People on May 28. "Brad was at her side during the birth." People was also told by Namibia's Environment and Tourism Deputy Minister, Leon Jooste, that "Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt will, according to Namibian law, be allowed to obtain Namibian citizenship, if the parents should choose to do so." On June 7 Pitt confirmed that their newly-born daughter will have a Namibian passport while speaking to local journalists: "Shiloh will receive a Namibian passport, so we shall return" [ Little Shiloh will be Namibian: Angelina and Brad, Yahoo - News ] Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi photographers to make these extremely valuable snapshots. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide â€" the most expensive celebrity image of all time. [ Picture this: $10m - Record for rights to Brangelina baby snaps, NYPost.com ] All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. On July 26 Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it is the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.[NYC Wax Museum Shows Off Jolie-Pitt Baby, washingtonpost.com]
In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper that originally aired on June 20, 2006, Jolie revealed that she and Pitt are planning to adopt another child in the foreseeable future.[Anderson Cooper 360 - Angelina Jolie: Her Mission and Motherhood, CNN.com - Transcripts]2001Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely mined Cambodia. According to Jolie, "I discovered things about what's happening in the world... Cambodia was really eye opening for me."[Angelina Jolie on Filling Lara Croft's Shoes and D-size Cups, NY Rock Interview] Deeply affected by these experiences, she eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she agreed to visit different refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in the area.
In February, Jolie went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed how shocked she was by these first missions.[Angelina Jolie named UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for refugees, UNHCR.org] She then flew to Cambodia in June for two weeks, mainly concentrating on the land mine situation there[Interview with Angelina Jolie. UNHCR.org], and later in August for ten days visited refugee camps in Pakistan which primarily host Afghan refugees; responding to an international UNHCR emergency appeal she decided to donate $1 million for Afghan refugees[Angelina Jolie responds to UNHCR emergency appeal. UNHCR.org]. She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits.[Angelina Jolie named UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for refugees, UNHCR.org]
Impressed by her interest and devotion in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August 27 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva. During a press conference she explained her motives for joining the refugee agency: "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."[Angelina Jolie named UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for refugees, UNHCR.org]
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Jolie was sporadically criticized for her commitment with Afghan refugees; she even received three death threats.[Angelina Jolie â€" Notes from My Travels (p. 191)]2002In March 2002 â€" while filming the movie Beyond Borders â€" Jolie visited Osire refugee camp in Namibia, home to mostly Angolan refugees, and met the UNHCR's Representative in Namibia, Hesdy Rathling. She and the production team of her movie later donated 270 tents and several hundred items of bedding and mattresses to the camp.[Angelina Jolie spreads goodwill in Namibia. UNHCR.org]
Jolie's next field mission brought her to the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand in May. Accompanied by the UN refugee agency's Regional Representative, Jahanshah Assadi, she toured the camp and was briefed by the Thai authorities in the camp as well as the refugee committee and refugee elders.[Goodwill in the Land of Smiles. UNHCR.org] The following month she took a four day trip to Ecuador visiting Colombian refugees â€" taking a closer look at the "Western Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis".[Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie ends Ecuador mission. UNHCR.org]
Jolie attended a land mine awareness centre in Cheshire, UK in October and later that month went to Kenya visiting the Kakuma refugee camp that hosts more than 80,000 refugees, mainly from Sudan. UNHCR's Representative to Kenya, George Okoth-Obbo, praised her "presence, just to bring some joy into what is undoubtedly a hard life for many of the people here".[Jolie gives refugee girls a shot at school in Kenya. UNHCR.org]
She went on a four-day mission to Kosovo in December, visiting return sites and met a team of women de-miners in the capital, Pristina. She also traveled to various enclaves in the volatile Mitrovica region, where she met Croatian refugees, minorities and mixed communities; she described the camps as a "sad place, hard to see how it can ever return to normal".[Goodwill Ambassador Jolie releases journals on Kosovo, Sri Lanka. UNHCR.org]2003 | In 2003, Jolie published a collection of journals made during missions for the UNHCR. Her proceeds from the book went to the UNHCR. |
In March 2003 Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania and traveled to the western border camps to learn more about UNHCR's operations in the area. She visited Lugufu camp, hosting some 85,000 Congolese refugees, and followed a group of 91 separated children who had just arrived from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She also donated $50,000 to the Kurasini orphanage in the capital.[Jolie thanks Tanzania for longstanding support to refugees. UNHCR.org]
She paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka in April getting a firstâ€"hand look at the postâ€"war conditions in northern Sri Lanka, visiting recent returnees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other victims of the 20â€"year civil war.[Jolie appeals for aid to help Sri Lanka's recovery. UNHCR.org] In August, Jolie concluded a four-day mission to Russia; she traveled to North Caucasus to learn about all aspects of UNHCR's operations in the region. In Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya, she visited Bella and Sputnik camps for IDPs, meeting displaced Chechens in their tent homes.[Keep options open for displaced Chechens, urges UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. UNHCR.org]
In October, she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions for UNHCR (2001-2003).
During a private stay in Jordan in December she asked to visit Ruwaished camp in Jordan's remote eastern desert, 70 km from the Iraqi border. The camp hosted some 800 people who have fled Iraq during the U.S. invasion.[Jolie urges Jordan to continue hospitality towards refugees. UNHCR.org] Later that month Jolie visiting Sudanese refugees near the Egyptian capital in Kilo Arbaa We Nus. She helped distributing winter clothes, blankets and toys to Sudanese refugees living there and also donated $20,000 to a community health project in the area.[Goodwill Ambassadors visit refugees in Egypt; discuss more joint initiatives. UNHCR.org]2004Jolie visited detained asylum seekers at three facilities in Arizona in April 2004, as part of her efforts to give a voice to the tens of thousands of asylum seekers detained in the United States. She also visited the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix.[Goodwill Ambassador Jolie visits detained children in Arizona. UNHCR.org]
She went to Chad for three days in June, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. She also went to Touloum camp, which hosts 17,000 refugees. Concluding the trip, she emphasized the urgent need for UNHCR and its partners to get additional funding in order to continue assisting the Sudanese refugees.[Urgent funds needed for Darfur refugees, stresses Jolie. UNHCR.org]
In October Jolie visited Afghan refugees in Thailand and later that month went directly to West Darfur, after she had paid repeated visits to Sudanese refugees in bordering countries to learn about the situation on the ground of thousands of IDPs. She stressed the need for security and access to displaced people's home villages at a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.[Jolie laments children's plight in Darfur, calls for more security. UNHCR.org]
On a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, Jolie took the opportunity to visit UNHCR's regional office in Beirut as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.[Jolie shares festive cheer with refugees in Lebanon. UNHCR.org]2005In January 2005 Jolie and UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner, Wendy Chamberlin held a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos announcing the formation of a Council of Business Leaders, an initiative intended to boost UNHCR's efforts to address the plight of innocent people forced to flee their homes.[Angelina Jolie, business leaders help UNHCR improve life for world's refugees, UNHCR.org]
On March 8 Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, DC. It was there that she announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children in Washington, DC, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation. Jolie had previously visited facilities for asylum seekers in Arizona and she donated $500,000 to the new-created center which will help keep it afloat for the first two years of its operation.
In May Jolie visited different Pakistani camps harboring Afghan refugees. During her three-day stay she also had meetings with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.[UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Jolie urges aid for Afghans in Afghanistan and Pakistan. UNHCR.org]
Also in May Jolie filmed a MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on their trip to Sauri, a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. There, Sachs's United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to end poverty, hunger and disease. The program originally aired on September 14, coinciding with the opening of the U.N. Special Summit on the Millennium Development Goals.
Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country in August. She has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. [Jolie given Cambodian citizenship. news. BBC.co.uk]
In September Jolie was named the new spokesperson for the clothing line St. John starting in the Spring of 2006. The deal includes the start-up of a charity headed by Jolie. The charity will focus on children's issues and causes. It is also believed to be the biggest celebrity clothing endorsement with the actress receiving $10-15 million.[Jolie to be new face for St. John label. MSNBC.com]
On October 12, 2005, Jolie was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA. [Jolie honoured for refugee role. news. BBC.co.uk ]
Jolie again went to Pakistan during the Thanksgiving weekend in November â€" accompanied by her boyfriend Brad Pitt â€" to see first-hand the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake that killed almost 100,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless. Both met with many quake victims as well as President Pervez Musharraf.[Goodwill Ambassador Jolie sees urgency of more aid in Pakistan. UNHCR.org]
On October 24 2005 Jolie attended the First Annual Benefit Gala for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, where she pledged to partner with the WHO to treat children in Ethiopia who have been orphaned by AIDS and are HIV positive. She also announced her plan to support the WHO's Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and pledged an initial grant. The gala helped the organization raise $800,000. [First Annual Benefit Gala. Worldwide Orphans Foundation]2006In January 2006 Jolie and her boyfriend Brad Pitt â€" flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yele Haiti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean, where they watched children dance and recite poetry. Jolie also arranged a deal with People magazine allowing them to print the first picture showing her visibly pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to Yele Haiti. [How Jen Found Out About Jolie's Baby. NBC10.com] Later that month Jolie attended the World Economic Forum in Davos where she participated in the panel discussion Human Rights: Reduced to Charity?.[World Economic Forum - Annual Meeting 2006: Angelina Jolie, cosmoworlds.com]
During a two-month stay in Namibia, as she awaited the birth of her daughter, Jolie promoted the Global Education Week in an interview with NBC; she urged for the wealthy nations to help all the world's children go to school. She also took part in a conference call with UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has pledged an extra $16 billion towards universal free education.[First Jolie praises Africa cash pledge. news. BBC.co.uk ]Jolie's inventory of tattoos has become the subject of much media attention, and she frequently adds or even changes existing tattoos. She has said that all the tattoos she possesses have a special meaning. Her tattoos include:
*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 large prayer for her son Maddox on her left shoulder which covers up the Chinese "death" tattoo.
*two pointy black tribals on the lower parts of her back.
Quod me nutrit me destruit (Latin for "What nourishes me also destroys me") several inches below her navel, became prominent after her pregnancy announcement.
*a tilted Latin cross on the lower left of her abdomen.
*a large Asian tiger on her back.
*a dragon under the tiger.
*XIII (number 13 in Roman numerals) on her left forearm.
* Arabic for "strength of will." (العزيمة) on her right forearm.
*"know your rights" just under her neck between her shoulders.
*coordinates representing the locations where she adopted Maddox (N11° 33' 00" E104° 51' 00") and Zahara (N09° 02' 00" E038° 45' 00") on her left arm, which cover up her "Billy Bob" tattoo.
Lasered/Covered:
*a dragon on her left arm (she has been lasering it for some months now but it can still be faintly seen).
*"Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, on her left arm
*a Chinese character for courage now covered by the Tennessee Williams quote.
*a Chinese character for death (æ») now covered by the prayer for her son.
*a tattoo both Thornton and Jolie shared. 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.
*a window on her lower back. On Inside the Actors Studio, she explained that she covered this tattoo, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.
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. Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in productions such as the Tomb Raider films, Original Sin, Taking Lives, Alexander, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.* She was born at 9:09 a.m. in Los Angeles. [SoulieJolie.com, SoulieJolie.com.]
* She is left-handed.[Deciphering Angelina, WutheringJolie.com]
* The name Angelina means "little angel" in Italian. Jolie in French means "pretty."
* She speaks "very little French" according to her book Notes from My Travels.
* She has said that she is bisexual and once claimed to have been in love with fashion model Jenny Shimizu, her co-star in the film Foxfire. "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." Jolie once described herself as "most likely to sleep with a female fan."[Angelina Quotes, Jolie web]
* She has a student pilot and private pilot (Foreign based) license.[Celebrity Pilots, Famous Pilots, Darren Smith, Flight Instructor, CFI Homepage]
* She collected knives in the past. "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling, like, feeling the pain, maybe, feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me."[PAULA ZAHN NOW, CNN.com - Transcripts]
* Her uncle, Chip Taylor, wrote the songs Wild Thing and Angel of the Morning.
* 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 Liverpool for treatment in 2002.[Angelina Jolie news archives', Abstract.net]
* She has continually denied rumours 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 right now" which, combined with her affectionate behaviour towards her brother that night, sparked the rumours. On Inside the Actor's Studio she said that she never had an incestuous relationship with her brother, stating that "the world is a lot sicker than I thought," in reference to the conclusion everyone jumped to. Also, in an interview with People magazine she and her brother stated that, being children of divorcees, they relied on one another and because of that they hold on to each other as a means of emotional support. She further explained in Vogue: "Saying I'm 'in love' with him is just an expression. It's just the way I was talking. What I meant was, in this moment, with all this shit going on, all that matters to me is that guy sitting right there who has stood by me and is so fucking happy for me."[Angelina Jolie: Body Beautiful, Vogue, April 2002 issue]
* In October 2005, The Sun tabloid in the United Kingdom, as well as several American entertainment news programmes reported that Jolie was in the running to appear with her Lara Croft: Tomb Raider co-star Daniel Craig in the next James Bond film, Casino Royale. This ultimately proved to be a false report.
* In a December 2001 Rolling Stone interview, Jolie said: "My favorite book [of the year] was Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father, about her childhood in Cambodia. I spent some time with her in Cambodia when I was there with UNHCR, and she's wonderful." On Loung Ung's website, Jolie is quoted: "I encourage everyone to read this deeply moving and very important book (Lucky Child). Equal to the strength of the book, is the woman who wrote it. She is a voice for her people and they are lucky to have her."
* She hasn't stated definitively whether or not she believes in God or what religion she practices. When asked in an interview with The Onion A.V. Club if there was a God, she said "For some people. I hope so, for them. For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me. There's something in people that's spiritual, that's godlike. I don't feel like doing things just because people say things, but I also don't really know if it's better to just not believe in anything, either." She is sometimes thought to be a Buddhist, but Jolie says that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. She added a tattoo of Buddhist Sanskrit symbols on her shoulder as a prayer for him.[[1], [2], [3], [4] [5]]
* In May of 2006, Maxim magazine named her #4 in their Hot 100 issue.
* In the "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People magazine for 2006, she was described as the world's most beautiful woman. [Most Beautiful People of 2006, People Magazine.]
*She is featured on the cover of Forbes "The Celebrity 100" edition for 2006, ranking at No. 35. [The Celebrity 100, Forbes Magazine.]
*
* Angelina Jolie, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador
* Angelina Jolie's Refugee Journals
* Angelina & Brad Have a Girl!, People magazine's story that broke the news of Shiloh's birth
* Angelina, Brad & Baby Shiloh, People special
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