Angelina Jolie and Adoption

1975 -

Actress

Angelina Jolie, born Angelina Jolie Voight, is an American actress who is as renowned for her exotic looks, sensual lips, and tattoos, as she is for her acting ability. She is a respected artist and has received three Golden Globes, as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lisa Rowe in the film Girl, Interrupted. Additionally, Jolie has starred in five student films, all of which were directed by her brother James Haven.

Jolie, the daughter of actor Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, was born in Los Angeles, California and as a child dreamt of becoming a funeral director. She attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute from the age of 11 and later completed a degree in film at New York University.

On March 28, 1996 she married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, with whom she had co-starred in the movie Hackers. Jolie attended her wedding in black leather trousers and a white shirt, which had her husband's name painted in her blood on the back. Jolie and Miller divorced on February 3, 1999. Jolie then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton on May 5, 2000, and together they adopted a son from Cambodia, Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie, who was born on August 5, 2001. Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003, and Jolie now has custody of Maddox.

Jolie has been long estranged from her father, actor Jon Voight, though a reconciliation was attempted by his appearing with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In the October 2004 issue of Premiere Magazine, Jolie indicated that she was no longer interested in pursuing a relationship with her father. Soon after he exploited a claim that she has "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood, she legally dropped Voight as her last name.

Jolie has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees since 2001, and frequently travels to far-flung countries to draw attention to the plight of people in Third World nations. In 2003, she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries chronicling her early work with the U.N.. In a January 2005 interview with Reuters, Jolie criticized fellow actors for not being committed enough in helping others, and stated at she gives one-third of her income to charitable organizations.

Jolie was also one of the first celebrities to accept an invitation to be one of the bearers of the Olympic Torch during the 2004 Olympic Games, though she was ultimately unable to participate due to filming commitments.

In the fall of 2004, it was reported that Jolie has started proceedings to adopt another child, this time from Russia.

Around the same time, Lauryn Galindo, the Hawaii-based adoption facilitator whose services Jolie had used to adopt Maddox, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to visa fraud and money laundering charges. She had been falsifying records of children to be adopted in visa applications to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and several of the children she placed had not been abandoned at all but were enticed away or bought from their birth families. It does not appear that Maddox was among them, although the investigation is continuing.

Besides her acting and humanitarian endeavors, Jolie also worked as a professional model in London, New York, and Los Angeles and appeared in numerous music videos including those of Meat Loaf, Lenny Kravitz, and the Rolling Stones.

As of early 2005, Jolie has not had a substantial hit film in several years, with several of her movies, such as Alexander, Sky Captain, and the second Lara Croft film being major box office disappointments. Nonetheless her exotic looks and acting talent still make her one of Hollywood's most in-demand actresses.

References

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Angelina Jolie".

Credits: Wikipedia