Few superstars have been through such a remarkable transformation as Angelina Jolie.
Celebrating her 40th birthday today, the mother of six has certainly come a long way since her wild child teens and early 20s, casting off ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton’s blood-filled necklace in favor of Brad Pitt’s $250,000 engagement ring, and trading drugs and attention-grabbing antics for humanitarian work.
Here, FEMAIL takes a look back at how Angelina revamped her once-unruly image – and life – in order to forge a wildly successful career, and settle down to a happy family life with her husband and their six children.
The daughter of actors Jon Voight and the late Marcheline Bertrand, Angelina was born in Los Angeles in June 4, 1975.
Soon showing her mom and dad’s aptitude for playing a part, the then-seven-year-old was cast in her father’s 1982 film Lookin’ to Get Out.
According to an interview with Rolling Stone, however, Angelina found it difficult to continue earning acting jobs during her teen years. She was often told that she was ‘too dark’; though she’d yet to hit the the tattoo parlor, she did have gothic-style black hair and was reportedly self-harming at the time.
Her wild child ways became all the more prominent during her teens. Her mother let 14-year-old Angelina’s boyfriend move in to their family home, and the actress later claimed they ‘lived like a married couple for two years’ before she called it quits, deciding that she wanted her freedom.
By the mid to late 90s, the burgeoning star was working regularly – but she continued to make headlines for more than just her films.
In 1996, she appeared with then-girlfriend Jenny Schimizu in the flick Foxfire. Jenny would later reveal that she took Angelina to strip clubs and ‘dominatrix joints’ and ‘she loved them all’.
Angelina’s antics sometimes stole focus from her accolades. After winning a Golden Globe for best actress in a mini series for her role in Gia in 1999, the actress made a scene at an after party held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Still dressed in her designer gown, she jumped into the pool – and pulled a reporter in with her.
But she kept winning those awards, and her talent couldn’t be denied – even if her scandalous behavior couldn’t be denied either.
In March of 2000, the raven-haired beauty took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted – but again it was Angelina’s antics, rather than her accolades, which grabbed the headlines.
Celebrating her win, the then-24-year-old kissed her brother James Haven on the lips, and even said in her acceptance speech that she was ‘so in love’ with him. Jokes about incest became the buzz of the night, outshining the fact that she won the Oscar at all.
Her wild behavior continued to be newsworthy later that year, when she attended the MTV Movie Awards with new husband Billy Bob Thornton. Angelina, all pouty lips and leather pants, hung onto the actor while he volunteered to a reporter that the couple had just had sex in the limo on the way to the event. Later, the couple took to wearing each other’s blood in vials around their necks.
The next few years, though, saw the beginning of major changes for the actress. In 2001, she was catapulted into true superstar status with the box office success of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
She began to tone down her behavior in front of the press, and seemed to be reevaluating what was meaningful in her life.
In August of 2001 Angelina was named a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, and the shift from uncontrollable starlet to humanitarian started to take shape.
Angie began going on missions for the UN, visiting poverty-stricken areas, refugee camps, and suffering women and children all over the world.
‘I started to travel and realized there was so much I was unaware of,’ she told National Geographic, adding that she was struck by ‘the extreme imbalance of wealth and resources in the world’.
Seeing all this suffering deeply affected her. Her trip to Cambodia in 2000, in particular, led her to make one of her most life-changing decisions yet.
In an interview with Elle, she would later say that there was a time when she thought she would never have children. But in March of 2002, at the age of 26, she became a mother for the first time when she adopted then-seven-month-old Maddox from Cambodia.
But while Angelina’s humanitarian work grew more frequent and motherhood led to a calmer lifestyle, a tabloid scandal that blew up in 2005 painted her as anything but saintly.
On the set of her film Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Angelina and married co-star Brad Pitt infamously fell in love, breaking up Brad’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston – and earning Angelina epithets like ‘homewrecker’ – though they have insisted all along that their relationship did not become physical until Brad was separated from Jennifer.
‘It took until, really, the end of the shoot for us, I think, to realize that it might mean something more than we’d earlier allowed ourselves to believe,’ Angelina later told Vogue magazine.
A series of photos of the couple playing house in W Magazine further damaged her reputation in the eyes of many, after Jennifer remarked that it was insensitive.
But Angelina moved on. In July 2005, at the age of 30, she adopted her second daughter, Zahara, from Ethipoia, whom Brad later adopted as well.
Then, less than a year later, in May 2006, the couple welcomed their first biological child, Shiloh. In March 2007 they adopted again, this time a boy named Pax, from Vietnam.
By now Angelina’s wild days were long behind her, but she had also become more than just a glamorous celebrity who had earned a reputation for making flawless fashion choices on the red carpet.
Fans and the media saw her now as the mother of a multiracial brood, which she expanded again in July 2008 with the birth of twins Knox and Vivienne.
But that didn’t mean that her stardom had begun to fade, however. In fact, in 2008 she was named the highest paid actress in Hollywood by The Hollywood Reporter, with films including Gone in 60 Seconds, A Mighty Heart, and Changeling under her belt. She was reported to have pulled in $15 to $20 million per film.
Still, it seemed that Angelina wanted to be taken more seriously. In late 2010, she began working on her directorial debut, filming war romance In the Land of Blood and Honey in Bosnia – a story that she also wrote and co-produced.
The film did poorly at the box office and received mixed reviews, but it did earn her a Golden Globe nomination as a producer.
Angelina was also keeping up her busy travel schedule, vising places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, and Iraq and meeting with refugees who’d fled from war and persecution. Photos of her tending to needy children in foreign countries became almost more common than those of her wearing designer dresses on the red carpet.
Except for one dress, that is. At the 2012 Oscars, she wore what may be one of the most iconic dresses to ever hit the award show. The actress posed, leg peeking out from under the high slit of her black Atelier Versace gown, and sparked endless internet memes and conversation.
After months of being regularly seen dressed-down in poor locales, Angelina’s Oscar style proved she was still one of the most glamorous stars on the planet.
Then, in April 2012 – seven years after their coupling was first revealed to the public – Angelina and Brad got engaged. Her hunky husband-to-be reportedly designed her $250,000 ring himself with the family’s go-to jeweler, Robert Procop.
But before she could walk down the aisle, the stunning star faced a major personal health battle that made headlines – and may have saved other women’s lives.
On May 14, 2014, Angelina wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that included a revelation that shocked the world. In the piece, she explained that she had elected to undergo a preventative double mastectomy to minimize her risk of developing breast cancer.
‘I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer,’ she wrote.
After having the procedure, she went on: ‘My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.’
The actress’ admission sparked the ‘Angelina Jolie effect’, opening up a wider discussion about breast cancer screening and inspiring more women to learn about their own BRCA status.
After undergoing an additional surgery to remove her ovaries and Fallopian tubes, a healthy Angelina was finally ready to say ‘I do’, and wed husband Brad Pitt in a very private ceremony on Aug. 23, 2014.
The bride wore a custom gown by Atelier Versace tailor Luigi Massi, with a veil that featured embroidered pictures drawn by her children.
‘It feels nice to be husband and wife,’ she told Vanity Fair.
Also in 2014, Angelina made her return to the silver screen after a three-and-a-half year hiatus. And she came back with a bang: Disney’s Maleficent became her highest grossing film ever, with worldwide box office earnings of $758,410,378.
It was clear that no absence from movie theaters could slow her down. Even when she wasn’t appearing in theaters, the superstar enjoyed constant media presence, covering her A-list marriage, fascinating family, and inspiring ambassador work.
On April 24, 2015 she gave her latest speech at the United Nations, pleading for more efforts to be made in the Syrian refugee crisis.
Now, on her 40th birthday, Angelina can truthfully claim to be one of the most philanthropic actresses of her time – which is pretty impressive for a woman who has also been called the world’s most beautiful woman by Vogue, People, and Vanity Fair.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
