Early Life
Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, California, to actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand. She rose to stardom in the 1990s. She began acting at a young age, studying at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute while in her early teens. Jolie later attended New York University.
Breakthrough Role
In the 1990s, Angelina Jolie became a popular actress. She gave a star-making performance in the 1998 television film Gia based on the short, tragic life of model Gia Marie Carangi. Jolie won a best actress Golden Globe for the role.
Another great dramatic role in Girl, Interrupted (1999) brought Jolie her first Academy Award (for best supporting actress). In the new millennium she continued to take on a variety of interesting roles, such as an adventurer in the Lara Croft films (2001 and 2003), a FBI profiler in Taking Lives (2004), an assassin in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and a neglected, troubled socialite wife in The Good Shepherd (2006). Jolie also embraced the word of sci-fi/fantasy with her roles as a squadron commander in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and a vengeful, monstrous mother in Beowulf (2007).
In 2007, Jolie gave a brilliant performance as Mariane Pearl, the pregnant widow of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl, in A Mighty Heart. The film was based on Mariane's account of her husband's abduction and murder.