Angelina Jolie: Latest news, bio & photos

Growing up in Los Angeles, Angelina was no stranger to the film industry, being the daughter of Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight and her mother is Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg.

She worked as a professional model in London, New York and Los Angeles, and also appeared in music videos for Meat Loaf, Lenny Kravitz, Antonello Venditti and The Lemonheads.

Angelina became popular from her title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movie. Initially disinterested, Angelina was intrigued by training for the athletic role and the public spent $275 million for tickets to see a buffed up Jolie.

In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films, including Hackers and Foxfire and made-for-TV movies True Women, and George Wallace and Gia which both won her Golden Globe awards.

In 1999 Angelina had a leading role in The Bone Collector, starring alongside Denzel Washington. In the same year Jolie gave a powerful performance in Girl, Interrupted playing opposite Winona Ryder, and she won a Golden Globe, a SAG Award and an Academy Award.

She married her Hackers co-star Jonny Lee Miller in 1996. They divorced and in 2000 and she married her Pushing Tin co-star Billy Bob Thornton. They divorced in 2002.

Some of her experiences as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were published in her popular book Notes from My Travels. Jolie's dramatic film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her humanitarian experiences.

In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy, Maddox and in 2005 adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl, Zahara.

In 2004, Jolie began filming the hit, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. When Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and he was soon seen frequently in public with Jolie.