Angelina Jolie turns 49 — inside her private world: six children, three divorces and star-studded career

An Oscar-winning actress whose reputation as a humanitarian precedes her, Angelina Jolie is turning 49 and she’s already lived a crazier lifetime than many people can imagine.

From her troubled teenage years as the daughter of actor Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, to her meteoric rise to fame and eventually having her own big family of six children – Angelina shows no sign of stopping.Star-studded family

Angelina Jolie was born June 4, 1975 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, to actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand – their second child, following the birth of James Haven. The year after their daughter was born, Jon and Marcheline separated and the latter put her career on hold to raise her children.

But Angelina has made it clear that she was inspired to act from watching films with her mother, as opposed to looking at her father’s successful career, as he won an Oscar for Coming Home, and received critical acclaim for his roles in Midnight Cowboy and Deliverance.

In fact, the actress had a strained relationship with her father early on despite receiving her acting debut aged seven in his film Lookin’ to Get Out. She famously doesn’t go by Voight, after she legally petitioned to be Angelina Jolie.

After spending her early years in Palisades, New York, Marcheline moved the family back to Los Angeles where Angelina attended Beverly Hills High School where she struggled. When she transferred to Moreno High School, she rebelled as a “punk outsider”. She wore all-black, would go out moshing, and had a live-in boyfriend for two years when she was 14 years old.

“My mother is so caring and nurturing, and the choices she made for me were not irresponsible,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2003.

“When I was 14, I was either going to be reckless on the streets with my boyfriend or he was going to be with me in my bedroom with my mom in the next room because I was going to have a boyfriend.”

She continued: “She made the choice, and because of it, I continued to go to school every morning and explored my first relationship in a safe way. So in some strange way, she really did the right thing. It kept me out of trouble.”

Mental health

It was as a teenager that Angelina first struggled with her mental health, experiencing insomnia and an eating disorder, and using drugs. Her mental health issues got so severe that she made two plans to take her own life at the age of 19, and then at 22 when she attempted to hire a hitman to do the job.

“He was a decent enough person and asked if I could think about it and call him again in two months,” she said. “Something changed in my life and I figured I’d stick it out.”

When she adopted her first child Maddox, Angelina turned a corner: “I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again.”

Career success

Following a brief stint in her father’s film aged seven, Angelina would later start her career in low budget film Cyborg 2 in 1992, then take a lead role in Hackers in 1995 where she met soon-to-be first husband Jonny Lee Miller.

The couple tied the knot in 1996, and famously Angelina showed up to the wedding in rubber pants and a white t-shirt with Jonny’s name written on it in blood.

Although they divorced in 1999, it seems Jonny only has kind words about his ex-wife: “She was cool as a cucumber, fearless that woman. And so, we did tandem jumps and I’m not going to lie, I found it terrifying but I did it anyway”.

In 1999, Angelina won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress when she played diagnosed sociopath Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted.

While filming Pushing Tin, the actress connected with actor Billy Bob Thornton, then-linked to Laura Dern. Thornton left the Jurassic Park star to marry Angelina in 2000, and they were together for three years.

She became a household name when she filled the role of Lara Croft in action adventure franchise Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001, which saw her reunite with father Jon Voight.

Her box office success saw her star in Mr & Mrs Smith alongside her would-be third husband Brad Pitt. She would go on to voice characters in Shark Tale, Kung Fu Panda, and Beowulf.

With a knack for thrillers, she starred in Changeling, Salt, and The Tourist too. But her biggest commercial success would be as Maleficent in 2014, which grossed over $758 million worldwide.

Work as a director

As well as acting, Angelina has shown her flair for directing. Her directorial debut was the documentary, A Place In Time, which looked at the daily lives of people in more than two dozen countries around the world during the course of a week.

She would direct, produce and write In the Land of Blood and Honey in 2011, a war drama, and she said of the experience: “What surprised me about directing is how much I loved it and how happy I am to be on the set. I love coming to work in the morning.”

She would continue: “I don’t love being in the hair and makeup chair. I don’t [love] being in costume. To me the strangest thing is that I’ve just spent the majority of my life in one aspect of this business, and because I was fortunate enough to become successful I never questioned whether I felt at home and found out later in life that I’m much happier directing.”

Since then she has directed Unbroken, By The Sea, and First They Killed My Father.

Humanitarian work

Angelina has been honored for her humanitarian efforts, advocating for causes to do with conservation, education and women’s rights Fearlessly, she has gone on a number of field missions to refugee camps and war zones worldwide.

When she became a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina said: “I will continue to do everything in my power in the years to come to support refugees and other displaced people. After 20 years working within the UN system I feel it is time for me to work differently, engaging directly with refugees and local organizations, and supporting their advocacy for solutions”.

Marriage to Brad Pitt

After meeting on the set of Mr & Mrs Smith in 2005, Angelina fell in love with co-star Brad Pitt. During press conferences, their chemistry sizzled yet both denied any relationship as Brad was married to Friends star Jennifer Aniston.

In fact, Angelina said: “To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn’t be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife.”

The couple would then confirm the nature of their relationship in January 2006, when they were expecting their first child, Shiloh, together. That same year, Brad adopted Angelina’s children Maddox and Zahara.

They tied the knot on August 14, 2014 at their winery, Château Miraval in France. But two years later, they separated – and Angelina filed for divorce on September 19, 2016. They were declared legally single on April 12, 2019.

When Brad sued his ex-wife for her share of the winery, she counter-sued him, alleging that he physically and verbally abused her and their children on a plane in 2016, reportedly leading to their divorce. A number of his children have since renounced his surname.Six children

Angelina is the mother to six children – three adopted internationally, three biological. She first adopted Maddox in Cambodia in 2002, when she herself was just 26 years old.

She told Vogue: “I was 26 when I became a mother. My entire life changed. Having children saved me — and taught me to be in this world differently.”

She would go on to adopt Zahara in 2005 in Ethiopia, give birth to daughter Shiloh in Namibia in 2006, and adopt Pax in 2007. In 2008, she gave birth to twins Knox and Vivienne in Nice.