Angelina Jolie

Date of Birth: 06.04.1975

Angelina Jolie Pitt - American actress, model, director, special envoy of the UN Secretary-General. Winner of the Oscar, three Golden Globe Awards (the first actress in history to win three consecutive awards) and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Place of Birth. Education. Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles (USA, California) as the daughter of famous actor Jon Voight and Franco-Canadian actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died on January 27, 2007, after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She inherited the blood of several nationalities - Slovak, German (on her father's side) and Franco-Canadian (on her mother's side). Angelina has an older brother, James Haven. Her godparents were actors Maximilian Schell and Jacqueline Bisset.

Jolie's parents divorced in 1976, and Bertrand moved with one-year-old Angelina and her brother to New York. A year later, Voight won the Oscar for his role in the film 'Coming Home', and Bertrand had to give up her dreams of becoming a famous actress and devote her time to raising the children.

When Angelina turned 11, the family moved back to Los Angeles, where Jolie studied for two years at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and Beverly Hills High School. She always felt uncomfortable due to her unusual appearance, her habit of wearing secondhand clothes, and her thinness. Later Jolie confessed that she felt very down and unhappy back then, felt useless and thus began to self-harm.

Long before Angelina Jolie became world-famous, the future star tried her luck in the modeling business. Jolie began working as a model at the age of 14. She was employed by 'Finesse Model Management' and was in demand both in the USA and Europe, primarily in Los Angeles, New York, and London. At that time, she also appeared in music videos of artists and bands such as 'Meat Loaf' ('Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through'), Antonello Venditti ('Alta Marea'), Lenny Kravitz ('Stand by My Woman'), and The Lemonheads ('It's About Time').

She made her film debut in 1982 in the movie 'Looking for an Answer'. However, she became known after playing Lara Croft in the films 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' (2001) and 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' (2003). Her other well-known roles include 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (2005), 'Salt' (2010), and 'The Tourist' (2010).

In 2009, 2011, and 2013, Jolie was named the highest-paid actress in Hollywood according to Forbes magazine.

Revenue. The most economically successful films of Angelina Jolie were 'Maleficent' (worldwide earnings - $758 million), 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (worldwide earnings - $478 million), 'Salt' ($341 million), 'The Tourist' ($293 million), 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' ($267 million) and the film with Nicolas Cage 'Gone in Sixty Seconds' ($237 million).

Director. In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary 'A Place in Time'. This was followed by further directorial works: 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' (2011) and 'Unbroken' (2014). In 2015, Jolie's third major directorial project - the drama 'By the Sea' - was released. Jolie also served as the screenwriter and (together with Brad Pitt) as the producer of the film, in which she and Brad Pitt also starred.

Awards and Nominations. In 2013, Angelina Jolie received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her outstanding humanitarian efforts.

On October 10, 2014, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie the title of Lady for her humanitarian work and presented her with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

Angelina Jolie was awarded the WSJ Innovator Award 2015 by the Wall Street Journal for her humanitarian work.

Jolie is one of the first actresses to win three Golden Globe Awards three times in a row in three different categories: 'Best Supporting Actress in a Mini-Series': 'George Wallace' (TV) (1997), 'Best Actress in a television movie or miniseries': 'Gia' (TV) (1998), 'Best Actress in a Motion Picture': 'Girl, Interrupted' (1999).

Humanitarian Work. Angelina became aware of the humanitarian catastrophe in developing countries in Cambodia while filming 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'. She contacted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for information and visited Sierra Leone and Tanzania in February 2001, where she was deeply shocked by what she saw. In the following months, Angelina visited Cambodia again and then an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, where she made a donation of $1 million for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ relief funds.