Born on June 4, 1975, Angelina Jolie Pitt is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. She has received several Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Golden Globe Awards. She made her screen debut as a child, along with her father Jon Voight, in Lookin' to Get Out (1982); kick-starting her career as an actor. Jolie’s role as a video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in the year 2001, was a significant step in her career, establishing her as a leading Hollywood actress. In the 2010s, she went a step ahead in her career by venturing into directing, screenwriting, and producing.
Early LifeAngelina Jolie Pitt was born in Los Angeles, California, to actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand, her godparents being actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. She is the sister of actor James Haven and niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor. In her teens, she studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, and later attended New York University. Jolie then joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At the age of 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos.
Personal LifeJolie’s personal life has never missed the limelight. She was in a serious relationship at the age of 14 but that did not work out. While working on the movie Hackers in 1995, she fell in love with actor Jonny Lee Miller and they got married soon, but divorced him in 1999. This followed with a relationship with model-actor Jenny Shimizu, which ended in 2005. In the same year, the actress married actor Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie and Thornton announced the adoption of a child from Cambodia in March 2002, but separated three months later, divorcing in 2003. She has been married to actor Brad Pitt since 2014. They have six children together, of which three were adopted.
Movie CareerJolie started off with appearing in many music videos like Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" and Antonello Venditti's "Alta Marea" in 1991, The Lemonheads's "It's About Time" and Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" in 1993. In the same year, she began her professional film career in a starring role in the science-fiction sequel Cyborg 2, as a near-human robot, but she was not so happy with the movie. She was next seen in Hackers in 1995, her first lead role. In 1996, she appeared in numerous movies like Love Is All There Is, Mojave Moon, and Foxfire, receiving a lot of appreciation for her performances. This followed with Playing God alongside David Duchovny and True Women in 1997, which did not work too well for her.
After a dip in her career, good things were in store for Jolie as she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in TNT's George Wallace in 1997, alongside Gary Sinise, wherein Jolie played Wallace's second wife, Cornelia. Her first breakthrough was her portrayal as the supermodel Gia Carangi in HBO's Gia in 1998, for which she gained huge recognition. Jolie won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the second successive year. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. She then moved to Hell's Kitchen and Playing by Heart in the same year. The latter received positive reviews and Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review. In 1999, Jolie starred in the comedy-drama Pushing Tin as a seductive wife with John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett, followed by The Bone Collector playing a police officer with Denzel Washington. She then played a supporting role of a sociopathic mental patient in Girl, Interrupted, which was her final breakthrough in Hollywood and won her third Golden Globe Award, her second Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2000, Gone in 60 Seconds was her first summer blockbuster, earning $237.2 million internationally, where she played the mechanic ex-girlfriend of a car thief played by Nicolas Cage. She then appeared in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001, which made her an international superstar as the film was an international hit, earning $274.7 million worldwide, and earned her a global reputation as a female action star. She then starred in Original Sin in 2001 and the romantic comedy Life or Something Like It in 2002. Even though these films did not do well, Jolie remained in demand as an actress and she was amongst Hollywood's highest-paid actresses, earning a reported 10-15 million USD per film. In the year 2003, she did films like Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Beyond Borders, followed by four films in 2004.
In 2005, Jolie appeared in the major box office success with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, starring opposite Brad Pitt, turning out to be one of the highest grossing pictures of the year. For her character of Mrs. Smith or Jane Smith, she was chosen by Maxim Magazine as No. 1 Sexiest On-Screen Assassin in April, September, and December 2007. By the year 2008, Jolie was considered the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, earning around 15-20 million USD per film. She later starred in Wanted, followed by Changeling. Jolie lent her voice for the DreamWorks animation Kung Fu Panda and continued her voice role in the sequels Kung Fu Panda 2, and Kung Fu Panda 3. In 2010, she acted in the thriller Salt starring as a CIA agent and was appreciated for her performance. Then, she starred opposite Johnny Depp in The Tourist.
Jolie directed the documentary A Place in Time in 2007 and made her feature directorial debut with In the Land of Blood and Honey in 2011. After a three-and-a-half-year break from the screen, she starred in 2014's Maleficent. She then moved to her second directorial venture, Unbroken in 2014, receiving mixed reviews. In her next directorial effort By the Sea in 2015, she starred opposite her husband, Brad Pitt.