Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie

Often touted as one of the most beautiful women in the world, Angelina Jolie's splendor is only surpassed by her ability to stay in the limelight. However, her glamorous lifestyle has not kept her from being what she loves most -- a mom, actress and goodwill ambassador.

Growing Up

Angelina Jolie Voight was born in Los Angeles, California, on June 4, 1975. Her parents are the Oscar and Golden Globe winning actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand.

While Jolie was still an infant, Voight and Bertrand divorced due to Voight's affair with actress Stacey Pickren, whom he lived with for several years afterward. Meanwhile, Jolie lived with her mother and her brother James Haven Voight. Reports are mixed as to how much of a role Jon Voight played in her childhood. Jolie graduated from Beverly Hills High School and attended both the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University.

She went on to work as a model, and then in 1993 at the age of 18, Jolie began her acting career playing a bit part in Cyborg 2.

Professional Life

Angelina Jolie rose to stardom in the late 1990s. Her first big role came in 1997 when she played Cornelia Wallace in the television movie George Wallace. Her performance earned her an Emmy nod and she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Her first big screen break came in 1998's Gia, where she played the title role. The movie was based on the life of model Gia Marie Carangi. Jolie received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award. Other films over the years include:

  • Hell's Kitchen (1998)
  • Playing by Heart (1998)
  • Girl, Interrupted (1999)
  • Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
  • Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
  • Original Sin (2001)
  • Life or Something Like It (2002)
  • Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
  • Shark Tale (2004)
  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
  • A Mighty Heart (2007)
  • Beowulf (2007)
  • Kung Fu Panda (2008)
  • Wanted (2008)
  • Changeling (2008)
  • Salt (2010)
  • The Tourist (2010)
  • Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

She has also directed, produced and written a handful of films and documentaries.

Awards and Honors

Throughout her career, Angelina Jolie has received several acting awards including:

  • Academy Award (Girl, Interrupted, 2000)
  • Golden Globe Award (Girl, Interrupted, 2000)
  • Screen Actors Guild Award (Girl, Interrupted, 2000)

Family Life

Angelina Jolie has been involved with actor Brad Pitt since mid-2005. They met on the set of their movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith, when Pitt was still married to actress Jennifer Aniston. Together they have six children:

  • Son Maddox was adopted in 2002 from a Cambodian orphanage.
  • Daughter Zahara was adopted in 2005 as an AIDs orphan from Ethiopia.
  • Daughter Shiloh Nouvel was born to Jolie in 2006.
  • Son Pax Thien was adopted in 2007 from an orphanage in Vietnam.
  • Twins (boy/girl) Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline were born in 2008.

Today, Angelina Jolie and her brood spend a great deal of personal and family time in Los Angeles, California, however, they also have a home in Provence, France.

Goodwill Ambassador

Besides parenting, acting and modeling, Angelina Jolie can also add humanitarian to her list of accomplishments:

  • In 2001, she became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Since becoming an ambassador, she has made numerous trips to underprivileged nations, both to see first hand the conditions many of these poverty-stricken people live in and to raise awareness and funds to help these countries.
  • In 2003, she founded the Maddox Jolie Project, which has a goal of eradicating extreme poverty and conserving wildlife in Battambang, Cambodia.
  • In 2005, she began working with the Worldwide Orphans Foundation through the World Health Organization (WHO) toward the betterment of conditions for the children of Ethiopia who have been orphaned by AIDs and/or are HIV positive.
  • In 2008, Jolie founded Kids in Need of Defense, which provides free legal aid to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have no legal representation.

Angelina Jolie's Tattoos

Jolie's tattoos

While tattoos are nothing new in pop culture, Jolie's tattoos are highly publicized, plentiful, and evolving. Among her more than a dozen tattoos are:

  • One-time boyfriend Billy Bob Thorton's name on her left arm was covered with the longitude and latitude where her oldest son was born.
  • A large tiger on her lower back.
  • The Chinese symbol for death on her upper back was covered with a prayer for her son.
  • The letter 'H' is tattooed on the inside of her wrist.
  • A cross is on her abdomen.
  • A gothic letter tattoo is on her back that reads "Know Your Rights."
  • An Arabic script tattoo on her right arm that reads "Determination" covers up an abstract tattoo she received with Thorton.
  • The Roman numbers for 13 May 1940 are on her left underarm signifying the date Winston Churchill gave his Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat speech.

Angelina Jolie Today

Even though she spends much of her life in front of a camera, Angelina Jolie is living a very good life. She has learned to balance a family, personal life and successful professional career.