For a moment
frozen in time (see nodes below), Angelina was forever destined to be
bound in connubial bliss with
Billy Bob Thornton. Damn, but that was noded a long time ago.
Bitch done traded the f**k up since then!!
First, the obligatory pre-2001 rundown of biographical details, for those who can't be troubled to go down a node.
DOB: June 4, 1975; birth name Angelina Jolie Voight (being the daughter of
John Voight, who she later disowned -- she legally dropped the "Voight" in 2002). Her mother was also an
actress, Marcheline Bertrand. Jolie's parents split in 1976 and she and her brother were raised by their mother, on a modest income. Jolie took up modeling (and
cutting herself) as a young teen, appeared as the lithesome sex appeal in some
music videos, and popped up in a few movies that started building her career. She married (and shortly divorced)
Hackers costar
Jonny Lee Miller (probably his claim to fame to this day is "I banged Angeline Jolie for a whole year"). Then came an Oscar for
Girl, Interrupted, and then Billy Bob, and now we're halfway into 2001.
So what has Ms. Jolie been up to since then? A fairly consistent film career (a total of sixteen pictures released), with some plaudits, for one thing. Among these was a forgettable
Tomb Raider sequel in 2003 -- which came out shortly after her divorce from Billy Bob was finalized, and she got
custody of the
Cambodian child they had adopted not long before. She did this little film called
Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 2005, where she worked with this dude named Brad. He was married (didn't matter). She had some other films here and there, but her biggest year yet (filmwise) was 2008, she voiced a character for
Kung Fu Panda (don't mock, this movie has been her biggest money-maker yet, raking in north of half a billion dollars), and in that same year she brought in a "Best Actress"
Academy Award nomination for her starring turn in
Changeling, a 1920s period drama helmed by
Clint Eastwood. Also featuring Jolie in 2008 was
Wanted, also a
box office success. She appeared in no films released in 2009, although 2010 has several releases scheduled.
Here's the full list of Jolie pics from 2001 (after
Tomb Raider to 2010, courtesy of
IMDB:
Wanted.... (2008)
Changeling.... (2008)
Kung Fu Panda.... (2008)
Beowulf.... (2007)
A Mighty Heart.... (2007)
The Good Shepherd.... (2006)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith.... (2005)
Alexander.... (2004)
The Fever.... (2004)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.... (2004)
Shark Tale.... (2004) (voice)
Taking Lives.... (2004)
Beyond Borders.... (2003)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.... (2003)
Life or Something Like It.... (2002)
Original Sin.... (2001)
Original Sin, by the way, included some
very, very naked, borderline
pornography sex scenes between Jolie and
Antonio Banderas.
But a lion's share of Jolie's press coverage in the retrospective decade has come from pursuits outside her acting chops. She
adopted several children (which has led some to charge that she is "buying children as fashion accessories"), and
bore three, including most recently a set of twins. She stole
Brad Pitt away from
Jennifer Aniston (and so restored a bit of
harmony to a
Universe clearly displeased with that mismatch). Let's face facts, folks, rumors aside, he seems happier.
Aniston may kiss a girl from time to time, but she just doesn't seem the type to get all that
freaky. Apparently marriage itself turned out not to be for either of them (Pitt and Jolie, that is); although she has now borne three of Pitt's offspring, the couple sometimes tabbed as "Brangelina" are determined to keep
living in sin (despite an almost constant kerfuffle of tabloid tidbits insisting that the pair is on the outs and total dissolution is in the offing).
And at last -- lost in all of the
hullabaloo over
love affairs and
action roles and awards ceremonies and births/adoptions is the great deal of work that Jolie has done towards making the world better of a place than it would be absent her efforts. While filming that first
Tomb Raider flick, she was exposed to the deprivations of
third world life and has been steady in her efforts to combat these ills. She became a
United Nations goodwill ambassador, and has with Pitt worked to raise funds for causes from relief following
Hurricane Katrina 2005 to help for
Haiti following the heartwrenching tragedy there in 2010, with countless similarly activities in between (and preceding). There's a degree to which
Hollywood types are given a roll of the eye when it comes to their
charitable work, as if it is thought to be perfunctory and PR-driven (though a fellow noder instists that it is nonetheless all about the PR, and that Jolie is "one of those celluloid leftists who talks a good fight about it"). But Jolie has been involved at a higher level than many of her
peers, and has been so since before she was quite as big a
sensation as she has now become in the
public eye.
Quick update: in May of 2013 Jolie went public with her preventative double-
mastectomy intended to head off the breast cancer from which her mother died, and for which Jolie was at a high risk.