Beautiful Miss Universe Profile Around The World

Mini Biography

Angelina Jolie is an Oscar-winning actress who has become popular by taking on the title role in the "Lara Croft" series of blockbuster movies. Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.

In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her parents - her father is the Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and her mother is Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. At age 11, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos. Her exotic good looks may derive from her mixed ancestry which is Slovak, French-Canadian, Iroquois and English.

In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997) (TV), and in George Wallace (1997) (TV) which won her a Golden Globe award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998) (TV). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) (TV) again garnered a Golden Globe award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.

Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.

With her new-found prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced and in 2000 she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.

In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The Croft character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the film was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in "Croft", and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.

One of the Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.

Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox and in 2005 adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003/I) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the film was not popular among critics or at the box office.

In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The film became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming "Smith". Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.

Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple continues to pursue movie and humanitarian projects.

The fallout from the Valerie Plame Affair continues, but there's at least one upshot to the sordid tale of espionage: we give you Liraz Charhi. The stunning Israeli actress and singer is set to star opposite Naomi Watts and Sean Penn in Fair Game, the Hollywood retelling of the events leading up to Plame's exposure as a deep cover C.I.A. operative. Charhi, who is actually of Iranian descent, is a complete unknown to North American audiences, and while her role as an Iraqi doctor in Game is unlikely to make her a household name, it's a pretty good start. I mean come on, look at that face.

Did you read the book Fair Game by Valerie Plame Wilson to prepare for your role as the Iraqi doctor willing to break the law to bring her brother to the States? Yes, it was very interesting, considering my mixed ethnic background, to learn that her paternal great-grandfather emigrated under the original family surname was Plamevotski. After The Washington Post revealed her identity as a CIA operative, it became apparent to everyone just how big a role she had played in stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weaponry, making her something of a hero to me.

In spite of the film's political stance and swipe at the Bush administration, did you encounter any lingering prejudices on or off set? Well, the actor who plays my brother in the film is actually from Egypt, and the producers thought it might be a problematic situation because he is a big star back there. I was in shock that they were guessing between the lines that there would be a problem. Of course, when I met Khaled Nabawy, there was no problem at all, and after we finished shooting we went for dinner with his wife and she said, "Isn’t it amazing that people can look on from the outside and say, 'He´s an Egyptian actor who plays an Iraqi and she´s an Israeli actress, do you think it´ll be okay casting them?'"

Did you find that upsetting?No, but what I am sorry about is that I have just lost two big roles in Hollywood because I´m Israeli. The producers didn´t say that it was a political decision, but I knew that it was. One role was an Iranian woman, but they said that they couldn´t take someone who is part Iranian but also Jewish, and living in Israel. So they took a famous Israeli movie star instead. The other role was to play a Muslim girl, and after flying to Los Angeles for numerous auditions, I finally lost the part. But I feel that things will change, and it actually makes me stronger in the short term.

What is day-to-day life like for you in Tel Aviv? Honestly? Even if you came to Israel I would say that both sides really want to live side by side peacefully. Many recent groundbreaking films have tried to show in the last five or six years just how far the region has come.

How liberal is Israeli society? Okay, so we do take drugs—not me personally—and we do have sex, we do meet our lovers for liaisons in the afternoon. Tel Aviv and Israel is a very free place. The way Hollywood pushed forward the sexual revolution in the late 60s and early seventies is now the template for modern Israeli filmmakers. Our country is religious, but in tandem with this is a great sense of 'live and let live'.

Tell me about the policy of mandatory military service in Israel? When you are 18, it's the law for both men and women to serve in the army. I was pretty lucky, as I survived the intense training complete with the heavy backpack on the assault course. I'm a small girl and it was pretty scary at first, but afterwards you really do feel like you can achieve anything you want. And after finishing in the army, most of these kids who have now really grown up don't want to go and live at home with their parents, so they go off traveling for example. In a similar way to how Americans cling on to the alumni thing, which indicates the importance of your college days, in Israel the best friends you have for the rest of your life generally come from the friends you make in the army. This is how my life in the army went. The army days maybe made me a very independent women in every way, which might have surprised a few casting directors. Where do you locate your sense of cultural identity? Put simply, I was raised in Israel and consider myself an Israeli, even though my heritage is firmly Iranian. I live quietly in the north of Tel Aviv which is a magical part of the city.

Sounds tranquil.Well I'm in the process of getting divorced. It's okay, though. Luckily we didn't have children. And no, I don't have a new boyfriend yet!

How do you relax? I go out with my girlfriends. We are not yet at the stage where they are taking me out for dates. The break-up of my marriage is still a little too fresh for that. But I'm hitting Pilates classes to keep in shape, so I can enjoy the odd glass of lambrusco. I'm a cheap date, one drink and I generally need to sit down afterward.

Any recommendations for visitors to Israel? There are some incredible dress designers who are getting younger and younger in Tel Aviv, and the hottest label right now is Miss Geisha, who makes the most beautiful dresses. For the premiere in Cannes I supported another local designer, called Riva Oshida, who is the most successful fashion designer in Israel. It was amazing to walk down the carpet with Naomi and be photographed with her.
Tags: Pop Culture, People, Movies, Liraz Charhi, Interviews, Fair Game, Andy Threlfall.