Angelina Jolie Biography

Before Jolie began a career as an actress, she was a model who was signed with Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United States and Europe, working mainly in in Los Angeles, New York and London. She also appeared in numerous music videos, including those of Korn , Meat Loaf , Lenny Kravitz , and The Rolling Stones . At the age of 16 Jolie went back to theater. Now committed to acting, her first role was a German dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, noticed how he would watch people, talk to them, become like them.

Jolie's first foray into film was of a sci-fi nature, with a supporting role in 1993's Cyborg 2, which didn't even make it to the big screen, and a lead role in Hackers (1995), where she met future husband and British actor Jonny Lee Miller of Trainspotting fame.
It should be noted that Jolie's performance was the only redeeming factor of the movie. Jolie and Miller's morbid wedding reception in 1995, where Jolie wore black and had Jonny's name written across the back of her shirt in blood, could have foreshadowed that their marriage would not last too long -- they were separated within the year and filed for divorce in 1999.

Her career as an actress, however, was flying high. She received critical acclaim in Without Evidence (1995), where she portrayed a drug-addicted teen; Foxfire, a 1996 Joyce Carol Oates adaptation, for her portrayal of a rebellious teen known as "Legs"; as well as in 1996's Love Is All There Is, for her role as an Italian girl in love with the son of her family's rival.

Jolie took the supporting role of Lisa Rowe alongside Winona Ryder in Girl Interrupted, a film that tells the story of female mental patients and was adapted from the original memoir Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. The movie was supposed to be a return to dramatic form for Ryder, but instead became the welcome-to-Hollywood coronation for Jolie. For her portrait of wild-girl inmate Lisa she won her third Golden Globe as well as an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress.

In 2000 Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster Gone In 60 Seconds, where Jolie played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of super-car-thief Nicolas Cage. She later explained that the movie was a welcome relief from all the heavy roles she played before.

Angelina Jolie Makes Headlines

In 2000, Jolie eloped with her Pushing Tin co-star Billy Bob Thornton, but after they adopted a Cambodian baby boy named Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie, in 2002, the couple later filed for divorce. Their sexually-charged marriage was the subject of much tabloid fodder, considering the eccentric couple carried vials of each other's blood around their necks and would suck face anytime a camera was near them.

In 2001, Angelina was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2004, Angelina was busy starring in Taking Lives, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Shark Tale, and as Olympias in Oliver Stone's Alexander. After starring alongside Brad Pitt in the romantic comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), Angelina can add the Robert De Niro-directed The Good Shepherd to her resume.

Angelina always manages to make headlines, but after Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston came to an end in 2005, rumors began circulating that maybe Angelina and Brad had an affair while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith.