Angelina Jolie's life in pics
It was an unusually quite 35th birthday for Angelina Jolie on Friday.
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Jolie's life is certainly a tapestry of myriad shades and hues. She was born to famous Oscar winning actor Jon Voight and 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 were brought up by their mother in New York.
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She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute at the age of 11 but dropped out just two years into the programme. Marcheline Bertrand let her 14-year-old daughter's older boyfriend move into their home, with Jolie and her elder brother James Haven. She broke up with her boyfriend in 1991.
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Teen years were not happy for Jolie. Her mother was not well off and she was often teased by other students at school for being extremely thin and for wearing glasses and braces. Depression and low self-esteem led young Jolie to start inflicting cuts on herself. "I had that problem early on when I couldn't feel a bond with another human being," she told Allure in a 2004 interview. Elsewhere she has been quoted as saying "For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me."
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It was while working for another 1995 film Hackers that Jolie met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. The film followed the exploits of a group of gifted high school hackers and their involvement in a corporate extortion conspiracy. However it failed to do well at the box office.
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In 1996, Jolie and Lainie Kazan were seen in the fast-paced and funny twist on Romeo and Juliet called Love Is All There Is. It was a comedy about two rival Italian catering families in the Bronx, New York that serves up laughs, love and "a touching slice of home cooking" (Variety).
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Jolie got an opportunity to work with two great actors, Danny Aiello and Alfred Molina, in Mojave Moon (1996). Al McCord (Danny Aiello) meets a voluptuous teen Ellie (Jolie) at a restaurant and offers to drive her back to the Mojave Desert, where her seductive mother Julie (Anne Archer) lives. Things take a strange turn when the daughter falls for Al and Al falls for the mother.
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In Firefox (1996), Jolie played the older and mysterious Margret "Legs" Sadovsky who helps four teenage girls stand up to their teacher who has been sexually abusing them. They build a solid friendship but their wild ways begin to get out of control. About Jolie's performance this is what Variety had to say: "The ensemble is appealing, but vastly uneven. Jolie is obviously a gifted actress, and Burress has natural charm, but Jenny Shimizu looks and acts as if she's still a Calvin Klein model."
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The 1997 thriller Playing God starring Jolie and David Duchovny was set in the Los Angeles underworld. Duchovny plays Eugene Sands, a surgeon with a revoked medical license who gets hired by a crime boss named Raymond Blossom. Things get complicated when Sands and Claire (Jolie), who is Blossom's girlfriend, fall for each other.
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The actress repeated her success in 1998, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV. The role of supermodel Gia Caragea in the TV drama Gia propelled Jolie to the line-up of Hollywood's best actresses. Wild at heart Jolie reportedly celebrated by jumping into the pool at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, still in her Randolph Duke gown.
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In the gangster movie Hell's Kitchen (1998), their first foray into crime doesn't end well for four kids from the New York neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen. While one is killed, another lands in jail and the other two manage to flee. Gloria (Jolie) blames Johnny (Mekhi Phifer) for her brother Hayden's (Ryan Slater) death in the incident and wants her new boyfriend to kill Johnny upon his release from jail.
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Set in modern-day Los Angeles, Playing By Heart (1998) is a film about six seemingly-unrelated tales about men and women trying to learn what it is to love. Despite an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Jon Stewart, Jolie's performance did not go unnoticed: "As a young scenemaker who keeps landing in one bad relationship after another, Jolie doesn't exactly avoid the pitfalls of the material she's given. But her performance is flabbergasting. Jolie appears to be one of those actors so unembarrassed by emotion that she just leaps right into a part and somehow manages to filter out the calculation." (Salon.com). Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.
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Jolie played Billy Bob Thornton's seductive wife in the 1998 comedy-drama Pushing Tin (1998). An intense rivalry develops between two air traffic controllers (Cusack, Thornton) that threatens both their careers and marriages. The reviews were mixed, with some positive comments on Jolie's presence in the film: "Ultimately, though, it is Angelina Jolie who ends up stealing the show. As Mary, she lets her eyelids droop and her lower lip swell as if she were just so full of sex that she's almost drunk." (Dallas Observer)
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In Bone Collector (1999), Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a reluctant police officer who is called in to assist veteran detective Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington). Together, the odd pair, one paralysed from the neck down and the other haunted by her cop father's suicide, together track down a serial killer.
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There could have been no better choice than Jolie to portray popular video game heroine Lara Croft, when she came alive on the big screen in 2001. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was the film that transformed Jolie overnight into an international superstar. As the rich heiress driven to explore ancient tombs and long forgotten empires, Jolie was in a league of her own.
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Original Sin (2001) in which Jolie starred opposite Antonio Banderas as the mail-order bride Julia Russell, did not do anything for her reputation as an actress. However her steamy scenes in the film did create quite a stir and Jolie promptly laid claim to the title of the 'sexiest woman in the world'.
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What's the most important thing in life? Is it love or is it your career? Is it work or is it your family? In the film Life or Something Like It (2002), an ambitious TV reporter Lanie Kerrigan (Jolie) must ponder these questions after a street savant tells her that she will die in seven days. Critics were quick to spot Jolie's talent: "The result is a worthy woman's film and Jolie's best showcase to date." (San Francisco Chronicle)
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In Taking Lives (2004) Jolie portrayed FBI profiler Illeana Scott who suddenly finds herself on a twisted and terrifying journey, surrounded by suspects in a case that has become chillingly personal. While the film received mostly unfavourable reviews, critics were willing to be more charitable to Jolie's performance. "Jolie is far too good for this tripe but she does give the film its only believable moments, and for the first half, her concentration makes you watch her intently," wrote Salon.com.
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Oliver Stone's 2004 magnum opus Alexander turned into a spectacular dud at the box office. The director blamed his depiction of Alexander's bisexuality for the film's poor showing in the United States. Far from being overshadowed by Colin Farrell and Val Kilmer, Jolie managed to garner fulsome praise for her role as Olympias: "Forget Alexander: The film is a pedestal to Angelina the great." (Slate).
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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, Johnny Depp or Will Smith could have played Mr Smith. However it is Jolie and Pitt who ultimately played the title roles of a paid assassin couple and rest, as they say, is history.
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In Robert De Niro's second film as director The Good Shepherd (2006), the tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Jolie is cast in the role of his neglected wife Margaret Russell.
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A Mighty Heart (2007) earned Jolie her fourth Golden Globe Award and her third Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for her depiction of Mariane Pearl, the wife of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped and later murdered in Pakistan. "The film belongs to Jolie. She won an Oscar for 1999's Girl, Interrupted but this is by far her best performance," is how Rolling Stone described Jolie's portrayal.
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In Beowulf (2007), an animated film shot using the motion capture technique, Jolie 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.
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Premiered at Cannes, Clint Eastwood's Changeling (2008) is based on an actual incident that rocked California's legal system. Changeling tells the shocking tale of a mother's quest to find her son, and those who won't stop until they silence her. Jolie received her second Academy Award nomination, and was also nominated for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for her portrayal of Christine Collins.
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In the spy thriller Salt, Jolie played a CIA officer whose loyalty is tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture. Salt's efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: 'Who Is Salt?' (Columbia Pictures)
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In 2010, Jolie came together with Johnny Depp in the romantic thriller The Tourist. About a broken-hearted American tourist, played by Depp, who travels to Italy where mysterious woman lands him into fix of mixed up identities, the plot failed to impress the critics.
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Unlike many public figures, Jolie has never been desperate about keeping her love life under wraps. Her first marriage to actor Johnny Lee Miller ended in 1999. Jolie was also married to actor Billy Bob Thornton, twenty years her senior. They got divorced in 2003, after three years of marriage. The actress was romantically linked to actor Timothy Hutton and there have been rumours of an affair with her Gone in 60 Seconds co-star Nicholas Cage in 2003. Among other men said to have been involved with Jolie are Olivier Martinez and Colin Farrell.
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Jolie is open about the fact that she's a bisexual and has had relationships with both men and women. She has acknowledged physical intimacy with her Foxfire co-star Jenny Shimizu. This is what Jolie had to say when asked by Barbara Walters if she was bisexual: "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"
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Today, Hollywood's golden couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie - or 'Brangelina' - are as much of a brand together as they are in their own individual capacities. The union of two successful, good-looking stars has caught the public imagination as few things have before. The two are watched and followed no matter where they go and every nuance of their relationship is constantly under scrutiny. Earlier this year the couple took a well-known tabloid to court when it ran a story claiming they had split.
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Jolie has three biological children. She gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. The first pictures of Shiloh were reportedly sold for $7 million, with the proceeds going to charity. The twins, Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline were born in Nice, France, on July 12, 2008. This time entertainment magazines Hello! and People doubled the price for photos and $14 million went to the Jolie/Pitt Foundation.
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Jon Voight and his daughter have never had an easy relationship. While Voight claimed Jolie had "serious mental problems" in an interview to Access Hollywood in 2002, she also made her contempt known. "My father and I don't speak. I don't hold any anger toward him. I don't believe that somebody's family becomes their blood. Because my son's adopted, and families are earned," Jolie was quoted as saying. However there has been a thaw in the relationship since February 2010 and the actress and her family were seen holidaying with Voight in Venice.
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Jolie has always been close to her older brother James Haven. But there was uproar when the two were snapped kissing each other on the lips at the Academy Awards in 2000. There was much ado about the incident and Jolie came on The Jay Leno Show and called all rumours about incest 'sick'. In an interview Haven also expressed outrage that his relationship with his sister had been misinterpreted by some. "I did not give Angie a French kiss, it was something simple and lovely," he was quoted as saying.
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At the last count, Jolie had over a dozen tattoos all over her body. There's one between her shoulder blades which reads "Know Your Rights". It's the title of a song of her favorite band. The tattoo on her left shoulder is a Buddhist Pali incantation written in Khmer script. Jolie replaced the tattoo she had done together with ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton on her right arm with one in Arabic script that means 'Determination'. The tattoo on her left underarm is the Roman number 13. The words of Tennessee Williams, 'A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages, are inscribed on Jolie's left arm. Besides this, Jolie has a cross tattoo on her stomach, and a small rune style tattoo on her wrist. The numbers on her upper left arm indicate the birthplaces of her children. The latest addition to Jolie's tattoo family is a 12-inch long, 8-inch wide Bengal tiger design on her lower back.
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Jolie's celebrity status is unparalleled. In 2006 she was described as the world's most beautiful woman by People magazine and again by Vanity Fair in 2009. She has been on the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world, in 2006 and 2008. She was also voted the greatest sex symbol of all time in a British Channel 4 show in 2007. She has been on the cover of nearly every well-known magazine in the world, including Esquire, Rolling Stone, Maxim, Marie Claire and GQ.
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Given her no-holds barred attitude to life, it is natural for Jolie to court controversies from time to time. She has run into rough weather over the intimate kiss she shared with her brother at the Oscars in 2000 and for a November 2008 photograph on the cover of W magazine that showed her breastfeeding her new born twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline. In 2005 the actress was accused of breaking up Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston. It was as charge that Jolie vehemently denied. "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife," she said in an interview in June 2005.
