Angelina Jolie is an Oscar-winning actress who has become popular by taking on the title role in the

"Lara Croft" series of blockbuster movies. Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in
international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most
beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.

In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her parents - her father is the
Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and her mother is Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee
Strasberg. At age 11, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She undertook
some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los
Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos. Her exotic
good looks may derive from her mixed ancestry which is Czech, French-Canadian, Iroquois and English.

In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers
(1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-
TV movies True Women (1997) (TV), and in George Wallace (1997) (TV) which won her a Golden Globe
award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in
the HBO production Gia (1998) (TV). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive
wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success
and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of
her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS.
Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) (TV) again garnered a Golden Globe award and another Emmy
nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.

Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone
Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force
performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of
women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's
character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar.
Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box
office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win
the Golden Globe, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.

With her new-found prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous
aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star
Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own
blood. Jolie and Miller divorced and in 2000 she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob
Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to
Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came
apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.

In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but
then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The Croft character was
drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James
Bond. When the film was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim
wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie
portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in "Croft", and during filming
there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.

One of the Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural
beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so
began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and
came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes
from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.

Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by
her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one
third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox and in 2005
adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003/I)
parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance
between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the film was not
popular among critics or at the box office.

In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The film became a major box
office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming "Smith". Jolie insisted
that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with
a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated
from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen
in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.

Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to
daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple
continues to pursue movie and humanitarian projects.