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Angelina Jolie - Biography |
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Actress, activist, and occasional
oddity Angelina Jolie is the daughter of 1970s movie star Jon Voight. Her
first movie was her father's Lookin' to Get Out with Burt Young in 1982,
but curious Jolie fans are advised: She was only six years old, and while
she was the best thing in that otherwise droll film, she appeared only in
the movie's last few minutes.
Her parents divorced when she was an infant, and Jolie was raised by her
mother not quite in poverty, but embarrassingly poor compared to her
classmates at Beverly Hills High School. In adolescence she sought work as
a professional model, but being somewhat gangly she was rarely hired. She
took acting lessons and says she dreamed of becoming a funeral director.
Desperately low on self-esteem, she could not stand to be touched during
those years, and in severe depression she once tried to hire a hit man to
kill her. He declined.
Jolie, which is actually her middle name, is a French word that means
beautiful, and by the age of 16 she had grown into the name. She appeared
in music videos by Meat Loaf and Lenny Kravitz, and at 17 she played a
half-human in the abysmal Cyborg 2 with Elias Koteas. Her first semi-hit
was Hackers with Matthew Lillard, and her first good reviews came for the
1998 HBO film Gia, a biography of doomed supermodel Gia Carangi.
She had a widely-publicized affair with lesbian supermodel Jenny Shimizu,
her co-star in the action film Foxfire. Shimizu says their time together
included at least one visit to an S & M dungeon. The two women have
remained friends, and have been intimate numerous times between Jolie's
relationships with men. Openly bisexual, Jolie has said she prefers to
play women she would be willing to date.
Her breakthrough role was Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder, where Jolie
played a chronically depressed mental patient not far removed from
herself, and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She attended the
awards ceremony with her brother, actor James Haven, and sparked worldwide
gasps when she said in her acceptance speech, "I am so in love with my
brother," and then proceeded to kiss him full on the lips.
She married Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star from Hackers, in a ceremony
where she wore black rubber pants and a shirt with his name scrawled
across it in her blood. Divorced from Miller after just three years of
marriage, she then married Billy Bob Thornton, her co-star from Pushing
Tin. He was twenty years older than Jolie and publicly announced that he
wore her underwear. They told reporters that when work kept them apart,
they each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. But her
second marriage, like her first, ended in divorce after three years.
Jolie's career sputtered as she starred in two generally successful films
based on the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider video games, but also made lackluster
duds like Original Sin with Antonio Banderas (memorable mostly for Jolie's
enthusiastic work without clothes) and the poorly-received Life or
Something Like It with Edward Burns. In Sky Captain and the World of
Tomorrow she played the pirate-like pilot, and in Alexander she played
Colin Farrell's mother, though she is only one year older than him. She
voiced a fish in Shark Tale, then had her biggest commercial success with
Mr and Mrs Smith in 2005, co-starring Brad Pitt. The movie was filmed and
released amid rumors that Pitt, who was still married to Jennifer Aniston,
was having an affair with Jolie. They denied everything, but Pitt and
Aniston were soon divorced, and Jolie and Pitt have been gossip fodder
ever since.
Jolie has volunteered as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees since 2001, and seems to take her UN work very
seriously. She has made trips to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan,
Thailand, and Chechnya, and donated $5 million to a wildlife sanctuary in
Cambodia. She and Thornton adopted an Ethiopian orphan in 2002, and Jolie
adopted a Cambodian orphan in 2005. In early 2006 Pitt adopted both
children, changing their last names to Jolie-Pitt. Several months later,
Jolie and Pitt had a daughter the old-fashioned way.
Jolie's mother was model and occasional actress Marcheline Bertrand, who
was part-Iroquois. Jolie and her mother produced the 2005 documentary
Trudell, about the Native American poet and activist John Trudell. Jolie's
godparents are actress Jacqueline Bisset and actor Maximilian Schell.
Voight played her father in the first Lara Croft movie, but father and
daughter have been estranged since Voight appeared on several talk shows
during Jolie's marriage to Thornton, describing Jolie as "mentally
deranged" and suggesting on TV that she seek professional help.
A brief controversy was sparked in 2006 when it was announced that Jolie
would play French journalist Mariane Pearl, widow of beheaded reporter
Daniel Pearl, in A Mighty Heart. The real Mrs Pearl is of mixed race and
African in appearance, but the controversy faded when Mrs Pearl announced
that she was delighted with the choice, and that Jolie had long been one
of her favorite actresses. Jolie has also been signed to play libertarian
hero Dagny Taggart in an upcoming feature film adapted from Ayn Rand's
novel Atlas Shrugged.
Jolie has been tattooed more than a dozen times, although several of these
were later laser-erased. She says she treats her body as a diary, using
tattoos to mark particularly good times. Among the tattoos she has spoken
of publicly, she has a Tennessee Williams quote on her left forearm, a
prayer of protection etched in Buddhist Sanskrit on her right shoulder, a
black cross, two Native American symbols, and "What nourishes me also
destroys me" is engraved in Latin on her stomach. Her "Billy Bob" tattoo
was removed after her divorce from Thornton. |
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Angelina Jolie - Personal Quotes |
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"Therapy? I don't need that. The roles that I choose are my
therapy."
"Because I am a bad girl, people always automatically think that I
am a bad girl. Or that I carry a dark secret with me or that I'm
obsessed with death. The truth is that I am probably the least
morbid person one can meet. If I think more about death than some
other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do."
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit
happens."
"And my dad, you're a great actor but you're a better father."
On if she ever caught her husband Billy Bob Thornton cheating: "I've
told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn't kill him
because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat
him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are. And I'd beat
her, too!"
"I'll make it real simple, I'm a 36-C. In the game, she's a
double-D. In the movie, she's a D. We split the difference...[the
movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)] is much more athletic, and she
has smaller breasts, but she's still Lara Croft, so there."
"I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong
women. It's like people see Hackers (1995) and they send me offers
to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little
tank top. I'd like to play strong women who are also very feminine."
"I'd like to believe that the people that have supported me in my
work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know
me, they do and they don't have misconceptions - they understand. I
believe that."
"I'm angry. I'm sad. It's a very difficult and sad time. It was a
real deep connection, a deep marriage, so it's not that simple to
say this or that one thing caused the problems. It's clear to me
that our priorities shifted overnight. He's focused on his music and
career. I'm focused on my baby. It comes down to what's important to
you." - on her split from husband Billy Bob Thornton
"There's something about death that is comforting. The thought that
you could die tommorrow frees you to appreciate life now." - People
Magazine 8 July 1996
"I felt that if I lived at that time, with the dangers she had and
the threats she had and the lack of power she had as a woman, I
would not have been that different from her. And I thought I also
just saw her as a mother who really would push her son at a time
that if he didn't get the throne, he didn't acquire a certain kind
of strength and ability and greatness, he would probably just die or
be killed or be exiled. So out of concern, out of love for your own,
just to come from this place that seems very much like the horrible
mafia father, but in fact it was for his own survival that she was
focused on, which made it very easy for me to focus on thinking of
my own son and what he had to do to protect himself from bad things
that could hurt him." - on playing Olympias in Alexander (2004).
"If you don't get out of the box you've been raised in, you won't
understand how much bigger the world is."
On the superficiality of the industry: "We are setting an example of
what we think is beautiful and you really want to put that much make
up on me?"
"You might never find out that you are useful for all the right
reasons - and not all those stupid things that people tell you
you're useful for."
"My role as goodwill ambassador has made my work as a film star
relatively dull. I can't find anything that interests me enough to
go back to work. I'm simply not excited about anything. I'm not
excited about going to a film set." (CNN International Edition 29th
January, 2005)
Has said about the money she makes each year: that she saves 1/3,
lives on 1/3, and gives away 1/3.
If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by
anyone's perception of me.
If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably
because I love life more than they do.
Love one person, take care of them until you die. You know, raise
kids. Have a good life. Be a good friend. And try to be completely
who you are. And figure out what you personally love. And like go
after it with everything you've got no matter how much it takes.
[Regarding the possibility of marriage with her current beau and
father of her child, Brad Pitt] We have both been married before so
it's not marriage that necessarily kept some people together.
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Angelina Jolie - Filmography |
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Atlas Shrugged (2008) ....
Dagny Taggart
Wanted (2008)
The Changeling (2008)
Kung Fu Panda (2008) (voice) .... Tigress
Beowulf (2007) (voice) .... Grendel's Mother
A Mighty Heart (2007) .... Mariane Pearl
The Good Shepherd (2006) .... Clover/Margaret Ann Russell
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) .... Jane Smith
Alexander (2004) .... Olympias
... aka Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut (USA: director's cut)
... aka Alexandre (France)
The Fever (2004) .... Revolutionary
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) .... Franky
Shark Tale (2004) (voice) .... Lola
Taking Lives (2004) .... Illeana
Beyond Borders (2003) .... Sarah Jordan
... aka Jenseits aller Grenzen (Germany)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003) .... Lara Croft
... aka Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Die Wiege des Lebens (Germany)
Life or Something Like It (2002) .... Lanie Kerrigan
Original Sin (2001) .... Julia Russell/Bonnie Castle
... aka Péché originel (France)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) .... Lara Croft
... aka Tomb Raider (USA: short title)
Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) .... Sara 'Sway' Wayland
Girl, Interrupted (1999) .... Lisa Rowe
... aka Durchgeknallt (Germany)
... aka Durchgeknallt - Girl, interrupted (Germany: TV title)
The Bone Collector (1999) .... Amelia Donaghy
Pushing Tin (1999) .... Mary Bell
... aka Turbulenzen - und andere Katastrophen (Germany)
Playing by Heart (1998) .... Joan
Hell's Kitchen (1998) .... Gloria McNeary
... aka Hell's Kitchen N.Y.C. (USA)
Gia (1998) (TV) .... Gia Marie Carangi
Playing God (1997) .... Claire
... aka Playing Hero
George Wallace (1997) (TV) .... Cornelia Wallace
True Women (1997) (TV) .... Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods
Foxfire (1996) .... Margret 'Legs' Sadovsky
Love Is All There Is (1996) .... Gina Malacici
Mojave Moon (1996) .... Eleanor 'Elie' Rigby
Hackers (1995) .... Kate Libby/'Acid Burn'
Without Evidence (1995) .... Jodie Swearingen
Alice & Viril (1993) .... Alice
Angela & Viril (1993) .... Angela
Cyborg 2 (1993) .... Casella 'Cash' Reese
Lookin' to Get Out (1982) (as Angelina Jolie Voight) .... Tosh |
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Angelina Jolie - Related Links |
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Wikipedia: Angelina Jolie
YouTube: Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie at Celebs, Inc.
Angelina Jolie at Babemania.com
Top Celebrities Sites:
The Celebrity
Cafe |
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