Angelina Jolie: Most Wanted at 39

Angelina Jolie is as famous as she is beautiful and, with her just-released film Maleficent sitting atop the box office charts, currently Hollywood's hottest property.

On her 39th birthday, here's a look at Angelina's life and times.

Angelina Jolie was born to Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and French actress Marcheline Bertrand on June 4, 1975 in Los Angeles, California. Her parents separated just a year after her birth and she and her brother James were brought up by their mother in New York.

She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute at the age of 11 but dropped out just two years into the programme. Angelina has often praised her mother for keeping her off the streets in her troubled teens by allowing her then 14-year-old daughter's older boyfriend move into their home.

Angelina started her showbiz career at the age of seven in her father's film Lookin' to Get Out (1982).

She then graduated to modeling and shooting for music videos. She worked with artistes like Meat Loaf (Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through), Antonello Venditti (Alta Marea), Lenny Kravitz (Stand by My Woman), and The Lemonheads (It's About Time).

Cyborg 2 (1993) was Jolie's first film as a leading lady. She played Casella "Cash" Reese, a near-human robot, designed to seduce her way into a rival manufacturer's headquarters and then self-detonate. The film was not very successful.

Angelina had a supporting role in the 1995 thriller Without Evidence.

While working another 1995 film Hackers, Angelina met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. The film failed to do well at the box office.

Angelina and Jonny married the next year and divorced in 1999.

In 1998, Angelina won a Golden Globe for her performance as Cornelia Wallace, the second wife of Alabama's pro-segregation governor George Wallace, in the TV drama George Wallace.

The next year, Angelina won another Golden Globe for her breakthrough performance as troubled supermodel Gia Carangi in made-for-TV movie Gia.

In The Bone Collector (1999), Angelina played a police officer on the trail of a serial killer opposite Denzil Washington. The same year, she starred in Pushing Tin with future husband Billy Bob Thornton.

Angelina and Billy Bob married the next year and divorced in 2003.

In 2000, Angelina won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a mental health patient in the film Girl Interrupted..

She also delivered her biggest hit that year - car heist film Gone In 60 Seconds co-starring Nicolas Cage.

Angelina then played action heroine Lara Croft in the first big screen adaptaion of the popular video game - 2001's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The film transformed her overnight into an international superstar.

The actress reprised her role in the sequel, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, two years later. Her co-stars in the movies were future superstars Gerard Butler and Daniel Craig.

Angelina's steamy scenes with Antonio Banderas in the poorly received Original Sin (2001) created quite a stir and she found herself tagged as a sex symbol.

In 2004, she took on a variety of roles, playing Colin Farrell's mother in Alexander, a Navy pilot in Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, an FBI agent hunting down a serial killer in Taking Lives, and voicing the gold-digging Lola in animated blockbuster Shark Tale.

One of Hollywood's most famous pairings nearly did not happen. While Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman were in the running for Mrs Smith's role in the action-comedy blockbuster Mr & Mrs Smith (2005), Johnny Depp or Will Smith could have played Mr Smith. That the roles eventually went to Angelina and now romantic partner Brad Pitt has a touch of destiny about it.

In Robert De Niro's second film as director, The Good Shepherd (2006), the actress was cast opposite Matt Damon and the director himself

A Mighty Heart (2007) earned Angelina her fourth Golden Globe nomination for playing Mariane Pearl, the widow of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl.

In Beowulf (2007), an animated film shot using motion capture technique, Angelina played the monster Grendel's mother. In an epic struggle of good and evil, the fearless warrior Beowulf realises he has awakened something much sinister by killing Grendel - his mother who is determined to avenge her son's death at any cost.

Angelina starred in some spectacular action scenes in the 2008 action movie Wanted, alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman. She won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Female Action Star. She also voiced Tigress in the blockbuster animated film Kung Fu Panda.

Angelina received her second Oscar nomination, and was also nominated for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild award, for her portrayal of Christine Collins in Clint Eastwood's Changeling (2008).

In 2010, Angelina was seen in the thriller Salt which was an international success. Soon after that, she co-starred with Johnny Depp in the romantic thriller The Tourist which failed to impress critics.

Angelina Jolie voiced Tigress again in 2011's Kung Fu Panda 2. The year also marked Angelina's first full length film as director, In the Land of Blood and Honey.

Angelina has visited various countries over the past decade as goodwill ambassador for the UNHCR. In April 2012, she made her first trip to Ecuador as a special envoy for the United Nations. Last year, she was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an Honorary Oscar, by the Academy.

Angelina and fiance Brad Pitt are Hollywood's It Couple and parents to a rainbow brood of six. They announced their engagement on April 14, 2012 and Brad was personally involved in designing Angie's ring. No wedding date has been made public yet.

In 2013, health activists, doctors and fans hailed the actress when she revealed in a New York Times op-ed that she had had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that would likely cause breast cancer. Angelina wrote that she made the choice for her six children after watching her own mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, die young from cancer.

She made her first public appearance after writing about her double mastectomy at the London premiere of Brad Pitt's movie World War Z on June 2, 2013.

The actress recently appeared as the witch Maleficent in the film of same name. The film, based on Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty, takes a look at the tale from Maleficent's point of view. The film, which premiered on May 28, is running to full houses across the world.

Angelina is currently working on Kung Fu Panda 3. We wish the actress a great year ahead.