Angelina Jolie , born Angelina Jolie Voight;
June 4, 1975 is an American actress and director. She has received an Academy
Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was
named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie
promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a
Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as the world's "most
beautiful" woman, a title for which she has received substantial media
attention.
Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father
Jon Voight in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in
earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993).
Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller Hackers
(1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George
Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted
(1999).
Jolie achieved wide fame after her portrayal of video game
heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and established
herself among the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood with the sequel The
Cradle of Life (2003). She reinforced her reputation as a leading action
star with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and Wanted (2008)—her
biggest non-animated commercial successes to date and received
further critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart
(2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an
Academy Award for Best Actress. Jolie made her directorial debut with the
wartime drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).
Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob
Thornton, Jolie now lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship notable for
fervent media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox,
Pax, and Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.