'''Angelina Jolie''' (born '''Angelina Jolie Voight''' on June 4, 1975) is an Academy Award-winning American actress, a former fashion model, and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. She is often cited by popular media as one of the world's most beautiful women
[http://people.aol.com/people/packages/0,19939,1184666,00.html Most Beautiful People of 2006, People Magazine.] and this same media also frequently reports on her tumultuous off-screen life. She has received three Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Jolie started her acting career with the low budget production ''
Cyborg 2'' in 1993 and had her first leading role in a major film in 1995’s ''
Hackers''. She went on to appear in the critically acclaimed biopics ''
George Wallace'' and ''
Gia'' and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1999 drama ''
Girl, Interrupted''. Jolie achieved international fame for her portrait of videogame heroine Lara Croft in 2001 and since then established herself as one of the best known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood.
[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001401/bio Biography of Angelina Jolie, IMDb.com] She had her biggest commercial success with the 2005 action-comedy ''
Mr. & Mrs. Smith''.
Jolie has been married twice – to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton – and she currently lives with fellow actor Brad Pitt, a relationship that sparked a worldwide media frenzy.
[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/02/06/1139074140202.html The Brangelina fever, theage.com.au] Jolie and Pitt have two adopted children, '''Maddox''' and '''Zahara''', and a biological child, '''Shiloh'''. Since 2001 Jolie is well known for promoting humanitarian causes around the globe, most prominently for her work with refugees through UNHCR.
Early life and family
Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the niece of Chip Taylor, sister of James Haven and the god-daughter of Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. People often assume that Jolie's mother is French, because of her name, but Jolie's grandparents were French-Canadian. She is of Czech and English descent on her father's side, and French-Canadian and Iroquois on her mother's side.
After her parents' divorce in 1976, one-year-old Jolie and her older brother James Haven were raised by their mother who had moved with them to Palisades, New York; one year later Voight won his Academy Award for Best Actor for ''Coming Home''. Her mother gave up her dream of becoming an actress to raise Jolie and her older brother.
[http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/032602/page2.html Angelina Jolie: Body Beautiful, Vogue, April 2002 issue] As a child Jolie collected snakes and lizards, she had
