Angelina Jolie biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, California, to actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand. She rose to stardom in the 1990s. She began acting at a young age, studying at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute while in her early teens. Jolie later attended New York University.

Breakthrough Role

In the 1990s, Angelina Jolie became a popular actress. She gave a star-making performance in the 1998 television film Gia based on the short, tragic life of model Gia Marie Carangi, which won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

Another great dramatic role in Girl, Interrrupted (1999) brought Jolie her first Academy Award (for best supporting actress). She has continued to take on a variety of interesting roles, such as an adventurer in the Lara Croft films, a FBI profiler in Taking Lives (2004), an assassin in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and a neglected, troubled socialite wife in The Good Shepherd (2006).

In 2007, Jolie gave a brilliant performance as Mariane Pearl, the pregnant widow of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl, in A Mighty Heart. The film was based on Mariane Pearl's account of her husband's abduction and murder.

Humanitarian Efforts

A devoted humanitarian, Angelina Jolie was made a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency in 2001. She has made headlines for her work to obtain aid for refugees in Cambodia, Darfur and Jordan, to name just a few.

In 2005, Jolie received the Global Humanitarian Action Award from the United Nations Association of the USA for her activism on behalf of refugee rights. She continues to travel the world to drawing attention to global issues.

Recent Roles

In October 2008, Jolie appeared in the Clint Eastwood-directed thriller The Changeling. Jolie played Christine Collins, a mother whose son reappears after his kidnapping. Collins is sure the returned boy is not the one to which she gave birth, and her fight reveals a police conspiracy. In 2009, Jolie received an Oscar nomination for best actress for her role in the film.

The actress went on to earn the lead role in the action-packed Salt (2010), about a CIA agent, Evelyn Salt, who is on the run after being accused of being a Russian spy. That same year, she earned the featured part of Elise Clifton-Ward in The Tourist alongside Johnny Depp. She has since been cast in the title role of Maleficent, slated to be released in 2014, and is scheduled to reprise her role as Evelyn Salt in Salt 2.

Personal Life

Famous for her off-screen romances, Angelina Jolie has been married twice.