Joys, tears and secrets of Angelina Jolie, the bad girl of Hollywood who was transformed into a powerful woman
Director, writer, actress and humanitarian activist, she proved that she is capable of pursuing all of her goals, but first she had to survive a dark past
She is one of the most prominent celebrities for her incredible talent on screen as well as behind her. Angelina Jolie lived a hectic personal life and for a long time she has been the center of attention around the world for her scandalous divorce with Brad Pitt, with whom she is currently fighting for the custody of her six children.
She is a philanthropist and a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR (the United Nations organization for refugees). Throughout her career, John Voight's daughter has received multiple accolades for her acting achievements, including an Oscar and three Golden Globes.
At 43, Jolie says she doesn't care what people think of her: "I never pretend that everyone understands or loves me," she told The New York Times in September 2017. "I know who I am and who I am. children know who I am. "
She had a difficult youth. She was married and divorced three times. The passage of time gives her satisfaction since she - she says - "means that I am alive, that I am living." Her current affairs are her children, continuing to work in front of and behind the camera and humanitarian aid.
She sharing life between artists. Angelina Jolie Voight was born in Los Angeles, California, on June 4, 1975, into a family of artists. She is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and the late Marcheline Bertrand. Her parents separated in 1976 so she and her brother, fellow actor James Haven, lived with her mother, who left acting to dedicate herself to motherhood entirely. It was in Los Angeles that Jolie decided to take her dream of becoming a Hollywood star seriously.
From a very young age she was characterized by having strange tastes. When she was a child she said that she wanted to work in a funeral home, so some years later she studied embalming. At 16, after graduating from high school and renting her own apartment, she decided to start her career in the entertainment world.
Dark stage. Her first film, at age 7, was the comedy El Gran Golpe en Las Vegas, starring her father with whom she always had a very bad relationship. So much so that she doesn't use her last name. The reason? She never forgave him for being unfaithful to her mother.
She did not enjoy her youth very much: she was bullied by her schoolmates. She confessed to having cut herself with sharp objects due to severe depression and she even planned to commit suicide on two occasions.
"For some reason, feeling pain with the cuts made me feel alive, a kind of liberation, in some way it was therapy for me," said the actress, who also suffered from eating disorders and at age 20 had already tried "almost all " the drugs.
The beginning. Jolie got a job as a model at age 15, even appearing in music videos for Rolling Stones and Lenny Kravitz.
Outstanding performances. The role that would boost her career as an international actress was in Hackers (1995), where she met her first husband. The role of Cornelia Wallace in the film George Wallace (1997), earned her a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination. She later starred in the movie GIA, an HBO production where she played an 80s supermodel named Gia Carangi. For this role, she won her second Golden Globe in 1998.
That same year she worked with Denzel Washington on The Bone Collector, where she played a police officer haunted by the suicide of her father who helps Washington search for a serial killer. The thiller was the actress's first commercial success. However, her worldwide recognition began after winning her third Golden Globe and an Oscar for best supporting actress in 2000 thanks to her work in the film Innocence Interrupted.
Also remembered in Jolie's long career are the films Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Good Shepherd, Stolen Lives, Maleficent, Wanted, and Agent Salt, among others. With her character as Lara Croft, in the homonymous film, and thanks to the film's box office success, she is today one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood.
Personal life. Jolie was married from 1996 to 1999 to British actor Johnny Lee Miller, her cast partner in the film Hackers, and then, from 2000 to 2003, to American actor Billy Bob Thorton.
Jolie and Bob Thorton had a very passionate relationship, with many displays of affection in public and even wore necklaces with the other's blood on their neck. Despite his short but intense relationship, the actor and film director has fond memories of his life with Jolie and always praises him. "Those years were wonderful. She is still my friend."
Health problems. In 2013, at age 37, Jolie underwent a double mastectomy to prevent possible breast cancer, a disease from which her mother and her grandmother died. In 2015, two years later, she preemptively removed her ovaries.
"I can already tell my children not to fear: they will not lose me to breast cancer," the actress said in a sincere column she wrote for the New York Times.
Humanitarian work. In 2002, the actress was appointed special ambassador of the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR), for her commitment and humanitarian work and, since then, she has traveled to conflict zones in Libya, Haiti, Syria and Iraq. .
One of her commitments as UN ambassador has been to denounce sexual violence against women in wars. Her first film as a director, In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), especially denounced the massive rapes in Bosnia
In 2005, the actress was accused of being the cause of the divorce between one of Hollywood's favorite couples: Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. The crush between them occurred during the filming of the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Before long, Pitt divorced the Friends star and began a love affair with Jolie that lasted just over a decade.
By then, Jolie had already adopted Maddox, her first child, who she had abandoned in an orphanage in Cambodia. After Maddox came Zahara, whom they adopted in Ethiopia when she was six months old, and a year later they welcomed her first biological daughter, Shiloh, born in Namibia. With it, the number of members of the Pitt-Jolie family continued to grow.
After adopting Maddox and Zahara, the three-year-old Pax came to the family, of Vietnamese origin. In 2008, they were parents to twins Knox and Vivienne. The birth photos were sold exclusively to People magazine for $ 14 million, the highest amount ever paid for celebrity photos. The money went to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.
After nine years of relationship, in 2014 they decided to get married. However, the happiness would not last long. The couple married at the request of her six children at her residence in France, and shortly after the marriage, Jolie directed the film By the Sea, which she co-starred with her husband. The movie was a flop. The end was drawing near for them too.
To the surprise of the world, the couple announced their divorce in 2016. The actress alleged "irreconcilable differences", but later it was learned that Pitt's violent attitudes and his problems with alcohol were decisive for the actress. Today they have a tough legal dispute over her six children, of whom Jolie has asked for absolute custody.
The hardest interview. In February 2017, she traveled with her children to Cambodia to present her latest film as a director, First They Killed My Father by Netflix. She there she offered the first interview after her scandalous divorce. "They have been very complicated moments. We are a family and we always will be," the actress told BBC World News.
For her part, Pitt admitted that her excessive drinking destroyed her marriage and she also referred to the investigation by the FBI and Los Angeles Children's Services after her altercation with Maddox, the eldest son. her. "After that, we are both doing our best."
Behind the camera. In her first job, the documentary A place in time, Jolie coordinated 49 film crews to film at the same time: her intention is to make the connection between everyone clear. In In Land of Blood and Honey (2011), she opted for a story about the Balkan conflict set in Bosnia. And in Invincible (Unbroken) she did not opt for a simple theme either.
Jolie runs away from easy projects. Her last works as a director were Netlflix's By The Sea and First They Killed My Father, a film adaptation of the memoirs of Cambodian-born human rights activist Loung Ung, from where she fled in 1975 after the Civil War. .
