Angelina Jolie: Unconventional Superstar

The most beautiful woman on earth, Angelina Jolie, who loves lizards, knives and tattoos,  always wanted to be a funeral director. Read on for more dope. 

The most beautiful woman on earth (as per Harpers and Queen magazine) Angelina Jolie Voight is not a woman you can ignore. And, neither does she care if you did. While tabloids ran titillating headlines about her romance with Brad Pitt, Jolie was busy with her projects as UN’s goodwill Ambassador. Born on June 4th, 1975, (9.09am for die hard fans) in Cedars, Los Angeles, this 5’8” beauty is not new to paparazzi and celebrity gossip. In fact, she has grown up in the midst of it. Her famous celebrity parents Jon Voight (academy winning actor) and Marcheline Bertrand (former actress and model) divorced when Jolie was two years old. Both Angelina and James Haven (her brother) were raised by their mother and grew up in New York and London before returning to LA. Jolie studied at the Beverly High School and like all young girls never ran out of new ideas for mischief. One of her famous ones was starting a gang called “Kissy Girls” who hunted boys down and kissed them till they screamed. (With those muscles, it’s not heard to believe either!)

Bitten by the acting bug, young Jolie would wear glittering clothing teamed with sparkly underwear and flash them for laughs. As a child she collected lizards and snakes. Her favourite lizard was called Vladimir and her favourite snake, Harry Dean Stanton. She also had a massive crush on Mr Spock. 

The adult Jolie now collects knives and has a fancy for tattoos. She has 12 to be precise. Each tattoo has a message: a prayer for Maddox (tattooed on her back); a prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages; a Japanese sign for death and “Quod me nutrit me destruit” meaning what nourishes me also destroys me. Jolie is known to be inclined towards the unusual; naturally tabloids are obsessed with this daredevil. For her wedding with Jonny Miller (first husband), she wore Black Jeans and a white shirt with Miller’s name written in (her) blood. Of course, her marriage to Miller ended in divorce (1999) but they still share a close bond. Jolie consults him on everything from her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton to adopting her son Maddox. She has also said that she and Jonny will share a bond for life. 

Her second marriage to Billy Bob Thornton ended in divorce (2002) as well although the couple was famous for wearing glass pendants with drops of each other’s blood in them. Jolie unashamedly admits to being bisexual though she only had one affair—with Jenny Shimizu. They met on the set of 1996 movie “Foxfire” and became lovers. This was before she married Billy Bob Thornton. Since then Jolie has been rumoured to have affairs with Timothy Hutton, Colin Ferrel, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Daniele Patini and lately Brad Pitt. At an interview on ‘Today’s Show’ with Ann Curry, Jolie dodged every question about her relationship with Brad Pitt neither admitting nor denying it. She simply said, “Do I need to defend that I’m a decent woman? I sure hope I don’t”. Jolie also said she wouldn’t be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife. That’s something her father did and she cannot forgive him for that much less herself if she did that, “I could not look at myself in the morning” she says. 

Jolie has always had a rocky relationship with her father from whom she inherits her trademark lips. Their relationship only worsened when Jon Voight begged her on TV (Aug 2002) to get help for her extreme emotional problems. That same year she dropped his name and stopped talking to him. Jon Voight says that was the only way he could reach her. Her bodyguards don’t allow him near her. 

While Jolie prefers to keep her father’s relationship personal, she has commented on her self-destructive activities involving self-mutilation and her past interests in drugs. Her foray into self-mutilation started at age 14 when she had her first boyfriend move into her mother’s house. But, at age 16, they split up and Jolie pulled herself together and moved into an apartment across the street from her mother’s where she seriously started thinking about her career and her life. 

Her childhood ambition was to be a funeral director. Jolie says that her interest in death is due to her passion for life. She didn’t find anything odd about smooching her brother at the academy for ‘Girl Interrupted’. But objected to implications of incestuous love between them when interviewed by Jay Leno. She also told Rolling Stone magazine that she once contemplated suicide but later hired a hit man to kill her to spare her family of any guilt feelings. The hit man, however, convinced her to live. 

Jolie has been living it up since then. Her first career as a professional model had her living in many places most frequently in New York, London and Los Angeles. She later settled in New York for a while where she joined The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University. Meanwhile, she appeared in music videos for Meatloaf, Lenny Kravitz, Antonello Venditti and The Lemonheads. She also acted in five student films for the USC School of Cinema all directed by her brother, James Haven. 

Her stint in theatre productions led her to bag a small role in 1993’s ‘Cyborg 2’. Though it was her first movie, Jolie did not go unnoticed. Her career started a steady climb. If 1995’s ‘Hackers’ earned her recognition and an introduction to ‘Trainspotting’ with Jonny Lee Miller; 1997 saw her win the Golden Globe Award for her role in highly acclaimed TV movie, ‘George Wallace’. Next, HBO’s ‘Gia’ earned Jolie professional respect and recognition as well as a nomination for the Emmy awards. Later in 1998, she bagged a role in the high profile production, ‘Playing by the heart’ that included Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Anthony Edwards, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Madeline Stowe. The following year saw her in another high voltage production, ‘Pushing Tin’ costarring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett. Her career got a big boost in 2000 when she won the Academy for Best Supporting Actress for her role in ‘Girl Interrupted’. That same year she appeared in a number of movies including ‘Gone in 60 seconds’ and ‘Original Sin’.

 With her role as Lara Croft in 2001’s ‘Tomb Raider’ she was impossible to escape. The Jolie fever only rose with the tomb raider sequel in 2003 and her next flick ‘Beyond Borders’. Last year saw her in a host of films from ‘Alexander’ to ‘Sky Captain: The World of Tomorrow’ to ‘Taking Lives’. She ended 2004 by lending her voice to Dreamworks animated flick ‘Shark Tale’. 

Today, she wears many hats: Superstar, Activist, Oscar Winner, Fashion Muse, World Traveler, Millionaire and Mom. Securing the first position in Harpers and Queen magazines annual compilation of the world’s most beautiful women; Jolie takes her good looks very lightly but uses her celebrity status well. She volunteers her time as UN’s Goodwill Ambassador for refugees but pays for her own expenses setting a new standard for new generation of goodwill ambassadors. In the last four years, she has traveled extensively from Pakistan, to Sudan, to Sierra Leone and other countries where refugee problems are a major concern. Apart from donating millions of dollars for humanitarian projects, Jolie is known to use the spotlight unselfishly redirecting it on civil society advocates thus making them more effective and powerful in their own society. Yet, the tabloids are more interested in her alleged affair with Brad Pitt rather than her ability to meet with Prime Ministers, Presidents and Royalty. 

When this femme fatale is not traveling she’s kicking back at one of her multimillion-dollar properties. The place closest to her heart is her exotic abode in Cambodia where she adopted son Maddox. While other celebrities prefer being flown around in their private jets, Jolie prefers to fly her own—a helicopter! Ajay Sinha, her flight instructor, rates her as the best student ever. If she’s not in Cambodia, she’s in her $5 million dollar extensive spread in England furnished with artifacts from her travel worth more than all her homes combined. There’s also the New York apartment that she bought nine months ago but has yet to spend a night. 

Anything Jolie does is headline news like her $10 million dollar diamond Oscar necklace to spending thousands on bodyguards for herself and son Maddox. But with mind-boggling assets, those figures are nothing for Jolie. She commanded a cool $19 million for her role as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Impulsive as ever, Jolie jumped into The Beverly Hotel’s swimming pool in a silver sequenced body hugging gown when she won the 2000 Golden Globe award. Oh, and before I go, Jolie’s left-handed and only eats red meat. So there you are, that finishes everything you ever wanted to know about Angelina Jolie. Watch out for her in ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ the movie that started the Pitt-Jolie ball rolling.