31 Awe-Inspiring Facts Every Fan Should Know About Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie, the Academy Award winning actress and humanitarian, has held the title of “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” and was also the highest-paid actress in the film industry for years. Here are some facts about Angelina Jolie, the American actress:

1. She was born Angelina Jolie Voight, on June 04, 1975, in Los Angeles, California, United States. She is the daughter of actress cum model, Marcheline Bertrand, and Academy Award winning actor, Jon Voight. She is of German, Slovak, French Canadian and Dutch ancestry.
2. Jolie attended Beverly Hills High School, and later moved to a nontraditional school, Moreno High School, where she became a ‘Punk Outsider,’ experiencing moshing and knife play. As a child, Jolie, took acting class at the Lee Strasberg’ Theatre Institute and modeled.
3. Though Jolie made her acting debut as a seven-year old with a bit role in the 1982 film ‘Looking to Get Out,’ she rose to fame in 1999 after her role in ‘Girl, Interrupted,’ as Lisa, for which she won ‘Best Supporting Actress Oscar.’
4. As a teenager she was emotionally disturbed and went into depression, resulting in insomnia, an eating disorder, and self-mutilation through cutting. She also experimented with drugs, experiencing a nervous breakdown, and attempted suicide twice.
5. By her own admission she is bisexual. Jolie was in an open relationship with model-actress Jenny Shimizu for several years while she was romantically involved with other people.
6. In March 1996, Jolie married the British actor Jonny Lee Miller, appearing in black leather pants and white blouse. On the white blouse, she painted her husband’s name with her own blood on the back. She later married Billy Bob Thornton and was in that relationship until May 27, 2003.
7. On August 23, 2014, Jolie married Brad Pitt, after an 11 year relationship, at their Chateau Miraval in Correns, France. They separated after two years with Jolie taking custody of their children. She has six children including three adopted children from Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Vietnam.
8. Jolie is famous for her 20 odd tattoos depicting her wild nature. Her tattoos include the letter ‘H’ with reference to her brother, a quote from Tennessee Williams, the Japanese sign for death, Buddhist Sanskrit prayers for protection, and a twelve-inch tiger among others.
9. After initially being rejected in auditions for being too dark, she was cast in her brother’s student film and several music videos, before landing her first lead role in the science-fiction sequel ‘Cyborg 2’ in 1993.
10. In 1995, Jolie landed her first Hollywood picture ‘Hackers,’ which earned her a positive review and typecast her as the ‘tough woman with guns.’ Here she met her future husband Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film.
11. With her performance in ‘Love Is All There Is,’ ‘Foxfire,’ and ‘Mojave Moon’ in 1996, she managed to overcome being typecast through her comic flair, sexuality, and screen presence.
12. Jolie earned her first Golden Globes Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biographical television film ‘George Wallace.’ She also received a nomination for an Emmy Award for her performance.
13. She won her second Golden Globe Award and first Screen Actors Guild Award for her breakthrough performance as America’s first supermodel, Gia Marie Carangi, in the 1998 film ‘Gia.’ Jolie found the role of the drug-addicted lesbian so extreme that she deliberately sought out a normal heterosexual character for next film.
14. After her performance in ‘Gia,’ Jolie announced an end to acting career, as the feeling that she had given her best created an emptiness in her. She split with Miller, and moved to New York for a short while to study directing and screenwriting.
15. Her next two films in 1999, ‘Pushing Tin’ and ‘The Bone Collector,’ met with mixed reception from critics, though the script for Amelia Donaghy as a police officer in the Phillip Noyce’s film was written based on Jolie’s real-life modeling career to make it seem more believable.
16. Her portrayal of Lara Croft in the 2001 film ‘Tomb Raider,’ catapulted her to international superstar status, though initially she expressed disinterest in the role. She received weapons training from one of the United Kingdom’s elite special forces instructors and also had lessons in yoga and kickboxing for the role.
17. Tomb Raider’s shooting in Cambodia changed Jolie’s humanitarian outlook through its natural beauty, culture, and poverty.She was made Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees following her tour of refugee camps around the world. She went on to adopt a Cambodian refugee boy, named Maddox, in 2002.
18. The 2003 film ‘Beyond Borders,’ though critically and financially unsuccessful, allowed Jolie to bring attention to humanitarian causes. The film’s tagline was: ‘In a place she didn’t belong, among people, among people she never knew, she found a way to make a difference.’
19. Jolie was the highest paid actress in Hollywood with success of ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘A Mighty Heart,’ ‘Wanted,’ and ‘Changeling’ in 2008, earning around $15 to $20 million per film. She is the third actress to join $20 Million club after Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz.
20. She ventured into directing with a documentary ‘A Place in Time,’ in 2007, which captured the diversity and similarity of human life with 40 film crews shooting around the world at precisely 12:00 noon GMT on January 11, 2005, for three minutes.
21. Jolie made feature film directional debut in 2011 with ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey,’ which she wrote, produced, and directed, in order to focus attention on Bosnian War survivors. For her efforts, she was made an honorary citizen of Sarajevo.
22. She went on to direct four more films, the ‘Unbroken,’ ‘Coldplay: Miracle,’ ‘By the Sea,’ and ‘First They Killed My Father.’ Though she did not receive any awards for the film ‘Unbroken,’ she was considered one of the Best Directional contenders and outperformed industry expectations financially.
23. Though Jolie decided to devote herself to humanitarian work with infrequent cinematic output, there are three film projects, ‘The one and Only Ivan,’ ‘Come Away,’ and ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead,’ under post-production. Another film ‘Eternals’ is under production.
24. As a ‘United Nation Ambassador,’ she toured more than 30 countries, interacting with refugees and internally displaced persons, publishing her experiences in her book ‘Notes from My Travels,’ in October 2003. She donated over $1 million for an international UNHCR emergency appeal.
25. Jolie was awarded Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honors list for her service to United Kingdom foreign policy.
26. She is known for her daring adventures into front lines in places such as Sudan’s Darfur conflict, the Second Gulf War, and Kabul during the Afghanistan war, where she met privately with U.S troops and other multi-national forces. She also holds a pilot’s license to ferry food and supplies to aid workers.
27. After the birth of her daughter Shiloh, she sold the first ever photo of the baby to Getty Images, for a reported $1 million. She later donated all of the proceeds to charity.
28. She has pushed three bills to protect child immigrants and other vulnerable children in both the U.S and developing nations. Since October 2008, she has co-chaired Kids in Need of Defense, a network of leading U.S Law firms that provide free legal aid to minors.
29. In August 2002, Jolie, received the inaugural Humanitarian Award from the ‘Church World Service,’ for her work and in November 2013, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Academy Award, from the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
30. At the age of 37 in 2013, she underwent a preventative double mastectomy after she was told of an 87% risk in developing breast cancer due to a defect in her BRCA1 gene. After each operation, she published her experience in the op-eds of The New York Times to raise awareness.
31. Angelina Jolie Net Worth: $100 Million