| | | 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 as well as her tumultuous off-screen life. She has received three Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Emmy nominations as well as an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film Girl, Interrupted. Born
June 4, 1975
Los Angeles, California Occupation
Actress, model, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Career milestones
Hackers (1995), Gia (1998), Girl, Interrupted (1999), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) |  | | | Early life and family. 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.
Her mother who grow up in Chicago gave up her dream of becoming an actress to raise Jolie and her older brother. People often assume that Jolie's mother is French, because of her name, but Jolie's grandparents were French-Canadian. Her paternal grandfather was from the Czech Republic. She is of Czech and English descent on her father's side, and French-Canadian and Iroquois on her mother's side.
After her parent's 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. As a child Jolie collected snakes and lizards, she had a crush on Mr. Spock 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. 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. 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. Two years later, as the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's place. 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".
Jolie has been long estranged from her father — mainly because she blames his cheating on her mother for the break up of their family — 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, but later explained she did not hate him because she realized that "...we only have so much energy in this life". 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. Voight has not met his grandchildren. | | | | | Back to top | | | | | | Back to top | | |
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