Angelina Jolie is an American actress, filmmaker and humanitarian. Winner of many awards, including an Oscar and three Golden Globes, she has repeatedly been called the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4, 1975 in Los Angeles, California as the daughter of actor Jon Voight and Marceline Bertrand.She is the sister of actor James Haven, and niece of singer and songwriter Chip Taylor and geologist and volcanologist Barry Voight. Her godparents are actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father’s side, Jolie has German and Slovakian ancestry, while her mother had French-Canadian roots. Jolie claimed partial indigenous ancestry.Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin’ to Get Out (1982), and her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in a major film, Hackers (1995).She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1999 drama Girl, Interrupted. Her starring role as video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) established her as a leading Hollywood actress.She continued her career as an action movie star in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and The Tourist (2010), and won critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Her biggest commercial success came in the fantasy film Maleficent (2014).She is also known for her voice role in the animated film series Kung Fu Panda (2008 – present). Jolie has also directed and written several war dramas, namely In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), Unbroken (2014) and First They Killed My Father (2017). In 2021, Jolie played the role of Thena in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Eternals.
In addition to her film career, Jolie is known for her humanitarian efforts, for which she has received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG), among others. Jolie promotes a variety of causes, including conservation, education and women’s rights, and is best known for her advocacy on behalf of refugees as a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Jolie has made more than a dozen field missions around the world to refugee camps and war zones; countries she has visited include Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Ukraine. As a public figure, Jolie is cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in America.
