MOTHER

Born on June 4, 1975 in Los Angeles, California, Angelina Jolie Voight is the daughter of actor Jon Voight, known for Midnight Cowboy, and actress/model Marcheline Bertrand.

Angelina was raised mostly by her mother, as her parents divorced when she was just a baby. They moved around a lot growing up, and as Angelina grew older, she did a good amount of traveling as a professional model, living in such places as London, New York, and Los Angeles, before settling in New York for a time.

"When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, I kind of wanted to be a vampire," Angelina said of her childhood.

Her charming looks may come from her diverse ancestry, which is Slovak and German on her father's side, and French-Canadian, German, Czech, Dutch, and remote Huron, on her mother's side. Angelina signed with Finesse Model Management in 1991, when she was just 16 years old. She later went on to attend New York University before appearing in TV and films.

"Make bold choices and make mistakes. It's all those things that add up to the person you become," said Angelina.

She made her screen debut as a young girl alongside her father, Jon Voight, in 1982's Lookin' to Get Out.

She began acting as a young teen studying at Lee Strasburg Theater Institute. However, she dropped out of acting classes at the age of 14, as she aspired to become an undertaker or funeral director.

Angelina’s next role was a small one in the 1993 low-budget 1993's Cyborg 2, followed by a part in the 1995 film Hackers, where she met her future husband, co-star Jonny Lee Miller. The couple divorced in 1999, and during the split, Angelina had a relationship with Foxfire co-star and model Jenny Shimizu.

When she was only six years old, her mother and stepfather, filmmaker Bill Day, moved the family to Palisades, New York. They returned to Los Angeles five years later. Angelina claims that as a child, she loved to watch movies with her mother and that it was this, rather than her father's career, that had inspired her interest in acting.

She finally made a name for herself in 1997 with her Golden Globe-winning performance in the TV movie George Wallace. She followed that incredible win with an Emmy nomination in 1998 for her head-turning performance in the HBO film Gia. From then on, Jolie was a superstar, on every talk show and on the covers of magazines.

Angelina then went on to win an Academy Award in 2000 for Best Supporting Actress in the climactic film, Girl, Interrupted. In the same year, she starred alongside Nicolas Cage in the crime flick, Gone In Sixty Seconds, and Academy Award-winning actor Billy Bob Thornton in the film Pushing Tin, whom she later would marry in early 2000. The marriage only lasted 3 years before the couple divorced.

Angelina has also starred in popular music videos for artists such as The Rolling Stones, Meatloaf, and Lenny Kravitz.

Angelina is quite an impressive woman, shown in her ability to take on many different roles and characters. She played the intelligent adventurer in the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider films starting in 2001, an FBI profiler in the 2004 Thriller Taking Lives, an assassin in Mr. And Mrs. Smith in 2005, and an undervalued, socialite wife in the 2006 film, The Good Shepard.

Angelina is married to the widely-known actor Brad Pitt, whom she met during the making of 2004’s Mr. And Mrs. Smith. The couple have six children together–Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shilo, Knox, and Vivienne.

Angelina spoke on her husband, "He made me a better person. I've learned so much from him, as you do when you come together with another person. You both make each other better. You both learn about the best of each other, and recognize the things where you're failing, or where you need to step up. When it's a great partnership, you really are patient with each other."

In 2006, Brad decided to adopt Maddox and Zahara as a father. It was finalized in 2006, and the couple changed their children's surnames from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt.

Angelina loves performing her own stunts. She did 80% of her own stunts in the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider films.

She has went on to tackle such films as Wanted, Salt, and Changeling, which she received four nominations for in 2009.

Angelina once said, "I'm drawn to kids that are already born. I think some people are meant to do certain things, and I believe I'm meant to find my children in the world somewhere and not necessarily have them genetically."

Angelina may be one of the top names in Hollywood, but it’s not just her acting that we admire. She is also a devoted humanitarian and is known for her efforts to obtain aid for refugees in many countries. In 2001, she was made a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, and later went on to receive the Global Humanitarian Action Award from the United Nations Association of the USA in 2005.

Angelina explained, "Not many people know this about me, but I'm a natural blonde. My hair went from light blonde naturally to a darker kind of blonde. My mother dyed my hair dark when I was a child, as I loved the look then. So, I'm basically a natural blonde."

“There are no secrets at our house. We tell the kids, ‘Mom and Dad are going off to kiss.’ They go, ‘Eww, gross!’ But we demand it,” said Angelina.

Maddox is Angelina’s first child, adopted from Cambodia. Three years later, she adopted daughter Zahara. The couple then adopted their third child from a Vietnamese orphanage and named him Pax Thien. Together, the couple have three biological children, Shiloh, and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

"I don't see myself as beautiful, because I can see a lot of flaws. People have really odd opinions. They tell me I'm skinny, as if that's supposed to make me happy," Angelina once said.

Angelina suffered constant episodes of depression and found it difficult to emotionally connect with other people throughout her teens and early twenties. As a result, she started to self-harm. She explained, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. 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." She also dabbled in using drugs and by age 20, she had tried "just about every drug possible."

"The side of fairytales I don't like is that they always have happy endings, that there's just good and evil, and things are perfect. But life is a little more complicated, and that's what I try to teach my kids," said Angelina.

Angelina has 14 known tattoos. One of her firsts is “A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages” inspired by the words of Tennessee Williams. She also has a tattoo between her shoulder blades that says “Know Your Rights” which is a lyric from her favorite band, The Clash.

"Love one person, take care of them until you die. You know, raise kids. Have a good life. Be a good friend. And try to be completely who you are. And figure out what you personally love. And like, go after it with everything you've got no matter how much it takes," said Angelina.

In 2011, she made her directorial feature debut with a love story set in the Bosniar war, In the Land of Blood and Honey. Her next successful directorial venture, Unbroken, was a film about World War II hero Lou Zamperini.

Shiloh, the oldest biological child of Brad and Angelina, expressed a desire to be a different gender around the age of 3. She informed the family that she wanted to be called John, instead, and dress in male clothing. In 2010, the Angelina told Vanity Fair that her child "wants to be a boy—She thinks she’s one of the brothers," and everyone in the family has completely welcomed her decision with open arms.

Angelina continues to travel the world, hoping to draw attention to global issues. She spoke on what she does with the money she earns each year, "Save one-third, live on one-third, and give away one-third."