|
|
|
Early life and family
Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors
Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, who died from ovarian cancer
in 2007. Jolie is the niece of Chip Taylor, sister of James
Haven and the god-daughter of Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian
Schell. On her father's side, she is of Slovak and German
descent and on her mother's side she is French Canadian and is
said to be part Iroquois, although Bertrand's alleged Native
American ancestry was once disputed by Voight.
After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother
were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions
and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child Jolie
regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that
this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been
influenced by her father. When she was 11, the family moved back
to Los Angeles and 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. She later
recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School
(later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among
the children of some of the area's more affluent families.
Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often
wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who
also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being
extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces.[10] Her self
esteem was further diminished when her initial attempts at
modeling proved unsuccessful. As her despondency grew, she
started to cut herself; 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."[11] At 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and
dreamed of becoming a funeral director.[12] Her self-loathing
led her to embark on a rebellious period in her life; she wore
black, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her
live-in boyfriend.[10] Two years later, after the relationship
had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks
from her mother's home.[9] She returned to theatre studies and
graduated from high school, 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".[13]
Jolie has been long estranged from her father, though a
reconciliation was attempted, and he appeared with her in Lara
Croft: Tomb Raider. In July 2002, Jolie filed a request to
legally change her name to "Angelina Jolie", dropping Voight as
her surname; the name change was made official on September 12,
2002.[14] In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his
daughter had "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood.
Jolie later indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a
relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don’t
speak. I don’t hold any anger toward him. I don’t believe that
somebody’s family becomes their blood. Because my son’s adopted,
and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to
publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but
because she had adopted her son, she did not think it was
healthy for her to associate with Voight.[15]
Early work, 1993–1997
Jolie began working as a fashion model at 14. She was signed
with Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United
States and Europe, working mainly in Los Angeles, New York and
London. At that time she also appeared in numerous music videos,
including those of Meat Loaf ("Rock & Roll Dreams Come
Through"), Antonello Venditti ("Alta Marea"), Lenny Kravitz
("Stand by My Woman"), and The Lemonheads ("It's About Time").
At the age of 16, Jolie returned to theatre, and played her
first role as a German dominatrix. 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".[10]
Jolie appeared in five of her brother's student films, made
while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but her
professional movie career began in 1993, when she played her
first leading role in the low budget film 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.
Following several undistinguished projects she starred as Kate
"Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture, Hackers
(1995), where she met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. 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."[16] The movie failed to make a profit at
the box-office, but developed a cult following after its video
release.[17]
She appeared as Gina Malacici 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 she was a youngster,
named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello, while he takes
a shine to her mother, Anne Archer. In 1996, she also played
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 Jolie's 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."[18]
In 1997, Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller
Playing God, a film portraying a famed L.A. 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 was not 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."[19] She then appeared
in the TV movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in
the West, and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle. That
year she also played a stripper in the Rolling Stones music
video for the song "Anybody Seen My Baby?"
Breakthrough, 1997–2000
Jolie's career prospects began to improve after her performance
as Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biopic George Wallace for which
she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy. The
film was highly praised by critics and, among other awards,
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 HBO's Gia as supermodel Gia Carangi.
The film depicted a world of sex, drugs and emotional drama, and
chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a
result of her drug addiction, and her decline and death from
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—filling the part
with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in this film is
quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed."[20]
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. In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting
Jolie reportedly 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 wouldn't 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.'"[21]
Following Gia, Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a
short period of time, because she felt that she had "nothing
else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study
filmmaking and attended writing classes. She described it as
"just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors
Studio.[22]
Jolie returned to film as Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster
movie Hell's Kitchen, and later that year was part of an
ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan
Phillippe and Jon Stewart in Playing by Heart. The drama tells
the story of several seemingly unconnected characters, with
Jolie playing a 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."[23] Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the
National Board of Review.
In 1999, she starred in 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 seductive wife Mary Bell. The
film received a lukewarm reception from critics and Jolie's
character was 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."[24] She then
worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector, an adapted
crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia
Donaghy, 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,[2] but was a critical
failure; the Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always
delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."[25]
Jolie next took the supporting role of Lisa Rowe alongside
Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted (1999), a film that tells the
story of mental patient Susanna Kaysen, and which was adapted
from Kaysen's original memoir Girl, Interrupted. While the lead
role of the film was Ryder's character, and was hoped to be a
comeback for Ryder, the film instead became the
"welcome-to-Hollywood coronation" for Jolie.[26] Jolie won her
third Golden Globe, 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"[27] and Roger Ebert wrote about her performance:
“ Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current
movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim.[28] ”
In 2000, Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster, Gone In
60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland,
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."[29]
She later explained that the film was a welcome relief after the
heavy role of Lisa Rowe, and it became her highest grossing
movie up until then, earning $237 million internationally.[2]
International success, 2001–present
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 master a British 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 Magazine
commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but
[director] Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger."[30]
The movie was a huge international success nonetheless, earning
$275 million worldwide,[2] and launched her global reputation as
a female action star.
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."[31]
In 2002, 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 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."[32]
Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft Tomb Raider:
The Cradle of Life in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative
as the original, earned $156 million at the international
box-office.[2] Later that year Jolie starred in Beyond Borders,
a film about aid workers in Africa. Although 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."[33]
In 2004, Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller
Taking Lives, as Illeana Scott, 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."[34] She also provided the voice
of Lola, an angelfish 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 shot
with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen. Jolie then played
Olympias in Alexander (2004), Oliver Stone’s biopic about the
life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, with
Stone attributing its poor reception to disapproval of the
depiction of Alexander’s homosexuality,[35] but it succeeded
internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United
States.[2]
Jolie's only movie of 2005, the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith,
is also her biggest commercial success to date. The film,
directed by Doug Liman, tells the story of a bored married
couple who find out that they are both secret assassins. Jolie
starred as Jane Smith alongside Brad Pitt. The film was well
received and 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."[36] The
movie earned over $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest
hits of 2005.[2]
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, played by Matt Damon. Jolie
co-starred as Margaret Russell, Wilson's neglected wife who
becomes increasingly discontented by the effects of his work.
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."[37]
In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary A
Place in Time, which captures the life in 27 locations around
the globe during a single week and features fellow actors such
as Jude Law, Hilary Swank, Colin Farrell and Jonny Lee Miller.
The film is intended to be distributed through the National
Education Association, mainly in high schools.[38] Jolie starred
as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's documentary-style
drama A Mighty Heart (2007), about the kidnap and murder of Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. The picture is
based on Mariane Pearl's memoirs A Mighty Heart and had its
premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter
described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving",
played "with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult
accent."[39] The film earned her a fourth Golden Globe and her
third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Jolie also played
Grendel's mother in Robert Zemeckis' animated epic Beowulf
(2007) which was created through the motion capture technique.
Her confirmed future projects include the action film Wanted,
based on a graphic novel by Mark Millar, as well as the
DreamWorks animated movie Kung Fu Panda. Jolie was also cast as
the lead in Clint Eastwood's upcoming drama The Changeling.[40]
Humanitarian work
Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian
crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely
mined Cambodia. 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 these areas. In February 2001,
Jolie 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.[41] In the coming months she returned to Cambodia
for two weeks and later met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan
where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to
an international UNHCR emergency appeal.[42] 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.[41] Impressed by her interest and devotion
in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August
27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.[43] In a press
conference Jolie 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.[41] ”
During her first three years as Goodwill Ambassador Jolie
concentrated her efforts on field missions, visiting refugees
and internally displaced persons (IDPs) all around the world.
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.”[44] In 2002,
Jolie visited Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian
refugees in Ecuador to take a closer look at the “Western
Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis”.[45] Jolie later
went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to
Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan.
She also met with Angolan refugees while filming Beyond Borders
in Namibia.
Jolie with Colin Powell in Washington, D.C., June 2004.
Jolie with Colin Powell in Washington, D.C., June 2004.
In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where
she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees
and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka. She later concluded
a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus.
Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders in
October 2003 she published Notes from My Travels, a collection
of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions
(2001-2002). During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003
she asked to visit Iraqi refugees in Jordan's remote eastern
desert and later that month she went to Egypt to meet Sudanese
refugees.
On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to
Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three
facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for
unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian
situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004,
paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had
fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months
later she returned to the region, this time going directly into
West Darfur. Also in 2004, Jolie met with Afghan refugees in
Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas
holidays, she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well
as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese
capital.
In 2005, Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghan
refugees, and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez
Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; she returned to
Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in
November to see the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake.
In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school
supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip
hop musician Wyclef Jean, and while filming A Mighty Heart in
India, Jolie met with Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi.
She spent Christmas Day 2006 with Colombian refugees in San
José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents. In 2007, Jolie
returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the
deteriorating security situation for refugees from Darfur; Jolie
and Pitt subsequently donated $1 million to three relief
organizations in Chad and Darfur.[46] Jolie also made her first
visit to Syria and Iraq, where she met with Iraqi refugees as
well as multi-national forces and U.S. troops.
Jolie and Condoleezza Rice at World Refugee Day 2005.
Jolie and Condoleezza Rice at World Refugee Day 2005.
With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in
promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. She
regularly attends World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., and she
was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in
2005 and 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests
in the U.S. capital, where she met with congressmen and senators
at least 20 times from 2003.[43] She explained in Forbes:
“ As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington,
that's the way to move the ball.[43] ”
In 2005, Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon,
where she announced the founding of the National Center for
Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides
free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal
representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of
$500,000 for its first two years.[47] Jolie also pushed for
several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the
Third World.[43] In addition to her political involvement, Jolie
began using the public’s interest in her to promote humanitarian
causes through the mass media. She filmed a 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. There, Sachs's
United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to
end poverty, hunger and disease. In 2006, Jolie announced the
founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial
donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without
Borders of $1 million each.[48] Jolie also co-chairs the
Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, founded at the
Clinton Global Initiative in 2006, which helps fund education
programs for children affected by conflict.
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work.
On October 24, 2003 she was the first recipient of the newly
created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations
Correspondents Association. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni
awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in
the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to
set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of
Battambang and owns property there.[49] On October 12, 2005,
Jolie was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.[50]
In June 2007, Jolie joined the Council on Foreign Relations,
when the bipartisan think tank officially approved her
membership nomination.[51]
Relationships
On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller,
her co-star in the film Hackers. She attended her wedding in
black leather pants and a white shirt, upon which she had
written the groom's name in her blood.[40] Jolie and Miller
separated the following year and subsequently 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."[21]
She then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton, whom she had
met on the set of Pushing Tin, on May 5, 2000. 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 relationship became a favorite topic of the
entertainment media.[40] Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27,
2003. Asked in Vogue 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."[52]
Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and 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."[53] 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!"[54]
In early 2005, Jolie was involved in 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, she has denied this in several
interviews. In an interview in 2005, she explained, "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."[54]
While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented on 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; they showed Pitt, Jolie and
her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer Jolie and
Pitt were seen together with increasing frequency and most of
the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina".
On January 11, 2006 Jolie confirmed to People that she was
pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirmed their
relationship for the first time in public.[40]
Children
On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child,
seven-month-old Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt (originally Maddox
Chivan Thornton Jolie[14]). He was born on August 5, 2001 as
Rath Vibol in Cambodia, and he initially lived in a local
orphanage in Battambang. Jolie decided to apply for adoption
after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming Tomb Raider
and on a UNHCR field trip in 2001. After her divorce from her
second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie received sole custody
of Maddox. His name is Celtic in origin, usually translated as
"beneficent",[55] and like Jolie's other children, Maddox has
gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the
tabloid media.[56]
Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley
Jolie-Pitt (originally Zahara Marley Jolie), on July 6, 2005.
Zahara was born on January 8, 2005; her original name has been
reported as either Tena Adam[57] or Yemsrach.[58] Jolie picked
her up at a Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa.
Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was
hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition. Zahara's name
means "flower" in Swahili, the second name "Marley" comes from
late Jamaican reggae artist Bob Marley.[55] In 2007, media
outlets reported Zahara's biological mother, Mentewabe Dawit,
was still alive and wanted her daughter back, but she later
denied these reports, saying she thought Zahara was a "very
fortunate human being to be adopted by a world famous lady".[58]
Brad Pitt was reportedly present when Jolie signed the adoption
papers and collected her daughter;[40] later Jolie indicated
that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara
together.[59] In December 2005 it was confirmed that Pitt was
seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children, and on January
19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The
children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".[60]
On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel
Jolie-Pitt, in Swakopmund, Namibia by a scheduled caesarean
section. Shiloh, according to a long-standing translation from
the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one".[55] Pitt
confirmed that their newly-born daughter will have a Namibian
passport,[61] and Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of
Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than
allowing paparazzi 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 – the most expensive celebrity image of
all time.[62] All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity
by Jolie and Pitt. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax
figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it was the first infant
re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.[63]
On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from
Vietnam, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt, who was born on November 29, 2003
and abandoned at birth at a local hospital, where he was
initially named Pham Quang Sang.[64] Jolie collected the boy
from the Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City.[65] His new
name is a combination of the Latin word for "peace" and the
Vietnamese word for "sky" or "heaven."[55] Jolie revealed that
his first name, Pax, was suggested by her mother before her
death.[66]
Jolie in the media
Jolie at a photo op in Washington, D.C.
Jolie at a photo op in Washington, D.C.
Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous
father Jon Voight. At 7 she had a small part in Lookin' to Get
Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986
and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards as a teenager with him.
However, when she started her acting career, Jolie decided not
to use “Voight” as a stage name, because she wished to establish
her own identity as an actress.[40] Jolie was never shy about
controversy and integrated her teenage "wild girl" image into
her public persona in the first years of her career. During her
acceptance speech at the 2000 Academy Awards, Jolie declared,
"I'm so in love with my brother right now", which, combined with
her affectionate behavior towards him that night, sparked rumors
in the tabloid media of an incestuous relationship with her
brother James Haven. She has denied those rumors vehemently, and
Jolie and Haven later explained in interviews that after their
parents' divorce they relied on one another and because of that
they hold on to each other as a means of emotional support.[40]
Jolie is noted as "the one A-list celebrity without a
publicist",[54] and she quickly became a tabloid's favorite,
since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews,
discussing her love life and her interest in BDSM openly,[7] and
once claiming to be "most likely to sleep with a female
fan".[54] As one of her most distinctive physical features,
Jolie's lips have attracted notable media attention and she has
been described as "the current gold standard of beauty in the
West" among women seeking cosmetic surgery.[67] She also created
headlines with her much publicized marriage to Billy Bob
Thornton and her subsequent change into an advocate for global
humanitarian problems. As she took on the role of UNHCR Goodwill
Ambassador she started to use her celebrity to highlight
humanitarian causes worldwide. Jolie has been taking flying
lessons since 2004 and she has a private pilot license and an
instrument rating.[68] The media speculated that Jolie is a
Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son
Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. Jolie has
not stated definitively whether or not she believes in God. When
asked in 2000 if there was a God, she said, "For the people who
believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for
me."[69]
Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of
the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie
confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media
hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters
described it in their story "The Brangelina fever".[3] Trying to
avoid the media attention, the couple went to Namibia for the
birth of “the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ”, as it
had been described.[70]
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.[43] In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in
42 international markets Jolie, together with Brad Pitt, was
found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and
products worldwide.[71] Also in 2006, Jolie was among the Time
100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world by
Time,[72] and she was described as the world's most beautiful
woman in the "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People.[73] On Forbes
Magazine's annual Celebrity 100 list, Jolie was ranked at No. 35
in 2006,[74] and No. 14 in 2007.[75] In February 2007, she was
voted the greatest sex symbol of all time in the British Channel
4 television show The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols.[1]
Tattoos
Jolie's inventory of tattoos has become the subject of much
media attention and has often been addressed by interviewers.
Jolie stated that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, the
large number of tattoos on her body has forced filmmakers to
become more creative when planning nude or love scenes.[76]
Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her
productions. Jolie currently has 13 known tattoos, among them
the Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart,
kept in cages", which she got together with her mother, the
Arabic phrase "العزيمة" (strength of will), the Latin proverb "quod
me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me destroys me),[77] and
a Yantra prayer written in the ancient Khmer and Pali scripts
for her son Maddox.[78] She also has four sets of geographical
coordinates on her upper left arm indicating the birthplaces of
her children.[79] Over time she covered or lasered several of
her tattoos, including "Billy Bob", the name of her former
husband Billy Bob Thornton, a Chinese character for death (死),
and a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed
the window, 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.[22]
|
