A Celebration of Women™

is elated to Celebrate the Life of this very special woman, one that has risen above extraordinary circumstance in childhood, courageously worked through depression, mothers six children, maintains a marriage; all while reaching the stars in one of our world’s most challenging industry – that of film.  Through all of her challenges and successes, this powerhouse has always devoted time from her life to the ‘betterment of the lives of others‘ and is is dedicated to eradicating extreme rural poverty, protecting natural resources and conserving wildlife. 

 

 

 

WOMAN of ACTION™

 

 

Angelina Jolie

 

 

 

Angelina Jolie (/dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-lee, born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, film director, and screenwriter. Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the sister of actor James Haven, niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, and goddaughter of actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell.

On her father’s side, Jolie is of German and Slovak descent, and on her mother’s side, she is of primarily French Canadian, Dutch, and German ancestry. Like her mother, Jolie has stated that she is part Iroquois, although her only known Native ancestor was a Huron woman born in 1649.

Her mother, Marcia Lynne “Marcheline” Bertrand was an American actress and producer. She also co-founded the All Tribes Foundation, to culturally and economically benefit Native Americans, and the Give Love Give Life organization, to raise public awareness of women’s cancers. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56. MEMORIAL VIDEO HERE

After her parents’ separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother lived with their mother, who had abandoned her acting ambitions to focus on raising her children. As a child, Jolie often watched movies with her mother and explained this had inspired her interest in acting; she stated that she was not influenced by her father’s career.

When she was six years old, her mother and stepfather, filmmaker Bill Day, moved the family to Palisades, New York; they returned to Los Angeles five years later.

She then decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions.

At the age of 14, Jolie dropped out of her acting classes and aspired to become a funeral director. She began working as a fashion model, modeling mainly in Los Angeles, New York, and London. During this period, she wore black clothing, experimented with knife play, and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend.

Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother’s home.

She graduated from high school and returned to theater studies, though in recent times she has referred to this period with the observation, “I am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos.”

Jolie suffered episodes of suicidal depression throughout her teens and early twenties.

She felt isolated at Beverly Hills High School among the children of some of the area’s affluent families, as her mother survived on a more modest income, and she was teased by other students, who targeted her for being extremely thin and for wearing glasses and braces.

She found it difficult to emotionally connect with other people, and as a result she started to self-harm; later commenting, “I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me.”

She also began experimenting with drugs; by the age of 20, she had tried “just about every drug possible,” including heroin.

Jolie has had a difficult relationship with her father.

Due to Voight’s marital infidelity and the resulting breakup of her parents’ marriage, she was estranged from her father for many years.

They reconciled and he appeared with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), but their relationship again deteriorated.

In July 2002, Jolie—who had long used her middle name as a stage name to establish her own identity as an actress—filed a request to legally drop Voight as her surname, which was granted on September 12, 2002.

In August of that year, Voight claimed his daughter had “serious mental problems” on Access Hollywood.

In response, Jolie released a statement in which she indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father. She explained that because she had adopted her son Maddox, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight. In the wake of her beloved mother’s death from ovarian cancer on January 27, 2007, Jolie again reconciled with her father after a six-year estrangement.

She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood’s highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011.

Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don’t believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.” — Jolie on her motives for joining UNHCR in 2001

For first-time director Angelina Jolie, it looks like being the controversy that just won’t go away. Bosnian victims of sexual violence during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s have written to the United Nations suggesting the actor and film-maker does not deserve her “Goodwill Ambassador” status because she ignored their concerns over a forthcoming film.

MISUNDERSTOOD

Jolie started shooting her directorial debut – a love story between a Muslim woman and a Serb man set during the country’s civil war in the early 90s – in Bosnia in October.

The problems began when local media reported the film featured scenes in which a Bosnian rape victim falls in love with her Serbian attacker. Jolie soon came in for criticism from Bosnia’s Association of Women Victims of War after she failed to meet members to discuss the stories. READ MORE – IMAGE

The allegations temporarily saw authorities withdrawing permission for the actor to shoot in the country, though the green light was eventually given after Gavrilo Grahovac, the Bosnian culture minister, saw a screenplay. However, the Association remains angry at what it sees as Jolie’s “ignorant” attitude and has now written to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), for which Jolie is a goodwill ambassador.

“Angelina Jolie’s ignorant attitude towards victims says enough about the scenario and gives us the right to continue having doubts about it,” the group wrote.

“We have insisted [on meeting] Angelina Jolie since we don’t want to be wrongly presented in the world … our voices are worthwhile and we should have got much more respect. Angelina made a big mistake. We feel that she did not act like a real UNHCR Ambassador and we believe that she has no more credibility to remain the ambassador.”

Jolie said in a statement in October that it would be a shame if “unfair pressure based on wrong information” prevented her from shooting her movie. According to her synopsis, the movie is a wartime love story between a Serb guard in a prison camp and his former girlfriend, a Bosnian Muslim detainee. It does not contain any rape scenes.

Jolie asked her crew to shoot a few panoramic scenes in Bosnia earlier this year, but did not herself travel to the country. The rest of the filming has reportedly been completed in Hungary.

Bakira Hasečić, the Association’s head, told news agency AFP Jolie had invited the victims to meet her in Hungary, but they had refused the invitation.

“Crimes were committed here, in Bosnia, and we want to meet her here,” she said. “We wanted to talk woman to woman. She should have asked after the victims, come [to Bosnia] before the shooting to hear our voice. As far as we are concerned a love story could not have existed in a camp. Such an interpretation is causing us mental suffering.”

PAKISTAN – In this handout photo from United Nations Humanitarian Commitee of Refugees, Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie talks with women who survived the October earthquake and are now sheltered in this camp erected by UNHCR and the Pakistan army, November 24, 2005. Jolie was on a visit to learn first-hand the needs of the people as winter approaches.

“According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, Jolie first became personally aware of the worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia back in 2000.

Since that time she has taken an active and visible role in leading and co-ordinating international action to protect refuges worldwide.

INDIA

The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation works with impoverished rural villagers and local governments to alleviate food insecurities and increase access to basic primary healthcare and education.

MJP is dedicated to eradicating extreme rural poverty, protecting natural resources and conserving wildlife.

MJP promotes sustainable rural economies that directly contribute to the health and vitality of communities, wildlife and forests.

Jolie has also spent many years contributing to anti-landmine work in war-torn countries such as Africa and Croatia.” She has also told reporters that she is focused on helping “forgotten emergencies“, making notable visits to countries in the thick of war, such as Dafur, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chad.

And, to top it all off, Jolie has received many prestigious awards, including being the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association.READ MORE

Tunisia: Angelina Jolie on the Libya Border

She has often been cited as the world’s “most beautiful” woman, a title for which she has received substantial media attention.

FILMS

Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in Lookin’ to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Jolie achieved wide fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and established herself among the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood with the sequel The Cradle of Life (2003). She continued her action star career with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), and Salt (2010)—her biggest live-action commercial successes to date—and received further critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Jolie made her directorial debut with the wartime drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie now lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship notable for fervent media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three biological children and three adopted children. As far as family goes, Pitt and Jolie’s six kids have been urging them to get married for over a year now. The couple got engaged last April and wedding rumors surfaced every other month since then, including one which said the couple eloped in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Christmas Day.

‘It’s a symbol of their impending marriage’: Angelina Jolie’s gold band is Brad Pitt’s great-grandmother’s wedding ring.

“The time has come… it’s soon,” Pitt told People magazine in December, leading many to speculate that the couple will exchange vows this summer.

The rumor has gotten some steam this month as well when reports that Pitt’s ex-wife Jennifer Aniston was delaying her own wedding to actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux until later this year so the Jolie-Pitt wedding wouldn’t overshadow her own nuptials.

Despite getting back to humanitarian efforts just weeks after the major part of her surgery, Jolie has kept a low profile for most of the year, while Pitt has been out promoting his new film, “World War Z,” which hits theaters June 21.

Both stars’ schedules are pretty free this summer, so it’s a good bet we’ll be hearing about a wedding in the very near future. READ MORE
 
 

CANCER

Angelina Jolie’s first appearance after breast surgery: “I feel wonderful“

 
“My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman,” Jolie wrote. “Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.”

CNN – VIDEO – “In telling her story, Jolie acknowledged that surgery might not be the right choice for every woman.

“For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options,” Jolie wrote. “I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.”

But for Jolie, the decision ultimately came down to her kids….”

“I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer,” she said.

WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN A STUDY ABOUT ANGELINA JOLIE’S CANCER NEWS?

 

Angelina Jolie turned 38 on Tuesday, June 4, and the superstar celebrated an especially poignant birthday with her seven favorite people in Berlin: Fiance Brad Pitt and their children Maddox, 11, Pax, 8, Zahara, 8, Shiloh, 7 and twins Vivienne and Knox, 4.

After Jolie joined Pitt, 49, on the week’s third red carpet event for his flick World War Z, the Oscar-winning actress changed out of a stunning Ralph & Russo strapless white crepe creation into another sexy look for an en masse dinner at Japanese eatery Kuchi.

Wearing a sleeveless black mini-dress, Jolie (who’s newly out and about after months of seclusion following a talked-about preventative double mastectomy) appeared in good spirits as the famous family headed into the restaurant for some birthday eats. Appearing all together for the first time in a while, the Jolie-Pitt children look more grown up and transformed than ever: With Zahara wearing a glamorous pink Grecian-style dress and sandals, Shiloh in chic tomboy shorts, loafers and white shirt, and her little brother Knox looking like the spitting image of his father in an all-black casual suit. READ MORE

 

Angelina on Twitter

Angelina on Facebook

Angelina Jolie *Official Fan Page* | Facebook

Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP) Offical Website

Team Jolie – Website

UNHCR – Angelina Jolie

 

 

 

 

A Celebration of Women™

welcomes this woman, a true power of example for all women, with open arms into our global Alumni and thoroughly enjoy sharing in her efforts to create positive change in our world, as she works diligently to better the lives of women and children.

 

 

Brava Angelina!