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Next to Liv Tyler, Angelina Jolie is the only actress of her
generation who can thank her famous father for the lips that have
become her trademark. The actress was born Angelina Jolie Voight
to the pillow-lipped Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand
on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.
Raised mostly by her mother after her parents divorced while
she was still a baby, Jolie moved around a lot with her mother and
brother. She also did a fair amount of traveling as a professional
model, living in such places as London, New York, and Los Angeles
before settling for a time in New York as a student at the Lee Strasberg
Theatre Institute and New York University, where she first started
acting in theater productions. The fledgling actress soon moved
on to film with a small role in 1993's Cyborg 2, followed in 1995
by her turn as a computer hacker in the more widely seen Hackers.
The film gave her her first taste of recognition, as well as an
introduction to Trainspotting's Jonny Lee Miller, to whom she was
married for a short time.
After appearing in a number of mediocre films, Jolie finally
hit it big in 1997 with her Golden Globe-winning performance as
George Wallace's wife in the highly acclaimed TV movie George Wallace.
The role, coupled with her Emmy-nominated performance in the title
role of HBO's Gia, provided Jolie with a new level of professional
respect and recognition. She was soon appearing on talk shows and
in magazines, answering questions about everything from her multiple
tattoos to her famous father to her brief marriage.
She was also netting roles in high-profile projects: In 1998
Jolie headlined an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gena
Rowlands, Anthony Edwards, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe, and
Madeline Stowe in Playing By Heart. The following year, she was
part of another high-voltage cast in Mike Newell's Pushing Tin,
co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate
Blanchett. Although the film was neither a critical nor a financial
success, it did little to diminish the rapid ascent of the career
of the actress, who was in hot demand for projects that would further
elevate her already rising star. In 2000, Jolie's star received
one of its greatest boosts to date when the actress won an Academy
Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a volatile
mental patient in Girl, Interrupted. Later that year, her personal
life also got a boost in the form of her April marriage to Billy
Bob Thornton.
Onscreen, Jolie was hard to miss in 2000. She starred in a number
of films, including the crime thriller Gone in Sixty Seconds, in
which she co-starred as a car thief alongside Nicolas Cage, and
Original Sin, a thriller that featured her as the bad-seed bride
of a Cuban tycoon (Antonio Banderas). If she was hard to miss in
2000, Jolie was impossible to escape in 2001 with her turn as shapely
video-game adventuress Lara Croft in the long anticipated film adaptation
of the popular Tomb Raider video-game franchise. Carrying on the
tradition of video-game movies that are light on plot but heavy
on the action, Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle
of Life (2003) scored with summer audiences and quickly shot to
number one at the box office despite disparaging reviews citing
an incoherent story line, unlike Life or Something Like It, the
2002 romantic comedy-drama that critics and audiences alike would
rather not have seen.
On July 18th, 2002, Jolie filed for divorce from Thornton, claiming
that their priorities no longer meshed after having adopted a Cambodian
son, Maddox. Though the famously quirky couple were no longer, Angelina's
film schedule remained hectic. In 2003 she would play a rich-girl-turned-humanitarian
in Beyond Borders, while 2004 saw a host of parts for Jolie, including
a role in Oliver Stone's Alexander, an epic biography of Alexander
the Great starring Colin Farrell, as well as a turn alongside fellow
Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,
and a role as a tough FBI agent in the thriller Taking Lives. Finally,
Jolie closed out the year by lending her voice to Dreamworks' animated
kid-flick Shark Tale.
While the Jolie-starring Mr. and Mrs. Smith proved one of Summer
2005's biggest money-makers, the actress's name fell on the lips
of gossip-mongers for most of the year not for the film itself,
but rather for Jolie's relationship with costar Brad Pitt. Though
the couple long shirked and denied rumors of an affair, the paparazzi
regularly caught them together in public, and
Pitt eventually filed for divorce from wife Jennifer Aniston.
Subsequently, they not only conceived a child in fall 2005 (whom
they named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt}, but became foster parents
to two adopted children, Maddox and an Ethiopian girl, Zahara Marley.
Jolie delivered Shiloh in Namibia, via caesarian section, as May
2006 wrapped, and the couple flew an ob-gyn in from Los Angeles
to assist with the birth.
By mid-2006, Jolie - as an actress, personality, and sex symbol
- claimed an almost matchless status in Hollywood popularity, rivaled
only by Jennifer Aniston, ironically. That year saw Jolie claim
a supporting role in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd, and announce
her forthcoming role in Beowulf. By late 2007, talk had begun to
swirl in the trades regarding Jolie's enlistment in a high-budget
action franchise based on the life and adventures of U.S. intelligence
operative Kathi Lynn Austin.
In 2007, her portrayal of Marianne Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's
adaptation of A Mighty Heart earned her strong reviews and nominations
for Best Actress from a number of organizations including the Screen
Actors Guild. Although Oscar snubbed her for that performance, she
landed in the big race the following year with her work in Clint
Eastwood's The Changeling. As a mother searching for her kidnapped
son, Jolie again garnered nominations from the Hollywood Foreign
Press, and the Screen Actors Guild, as well as securing her first
Oscar nod since winning years earlier for Girl, Interrupted. ~ Rebecca
Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- UNHCR
Angelina Jolie Biography
Filmography
Untitled Kay Scarpetta Project (2011) (announced) (rumored)
.... Kay Scarpetta
Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom (2011) (pre-production)
(voice) .... Tigress
Wanted 2 (2011) (pre-production) (rumored) .... Fox
Salt (2010) (post-production) .... Evelyn Salt
Wanted (2008) .... Fox
Changeling (2008) .... Christine Collins
Kung Fu Panda (2008) (voice) .... Tigress
... aka Kung Fu Panda: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version)
Beowulf (2007) .... Grendel's Mother
... aka Beowulf: An IMAX 3D Experience (USA: IMAX version)
... aka Beowulf: The IMAX Experience (USA: IMAX version)
A Mighty Heart (2007) .... Mariane Pearl
The Good Shepherd (2006) .... Margaret 'Clover' Russell
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) .... Jane Smith
... aka Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Australia)
Alexander (2004) .... Olympias
... aka Alexander (Germany)
... aka Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut (USA: recut version)
... aka Alexander: Director's Cut (USA: censored version)
... 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 / Bonny 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: alternative title)
Gia (1998) (TV) .... Gia Carangi
Playing God (1997) .... Claire
... aka Playing Hero
George Wallace (1997) (TV) .... Cornelia Wallace
True Women (1997) (TV) .... Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods
Foxfire (1996) .... Legs Sadovsky
Mojave Moon (1996) .... Eleanor 'Elie' Rigby
Love Is All There Is (1996) .... Gina Malacici
Hackers (1995) .... Kate Libby / 'Acid Burn'
Without Evidence (1995) .... Jodie Swearingen
Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell II - Picture Show (1994) (V)
(uncredited) .... (music video 'Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through')
Cyborg 2 (1993) .... Casella 'Cash' Reese
... aka Glass Shadow (USA: DVD title)
Alice & Viril (1993) .... Alice
Angela & Viril (1993) .... Angela
Lookin' to Get Out (1982) (as Angelina Jolie Voight) ....
Tosh
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