Actress. Born Angelina Jolie Voight, on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, California. Her father, actor Jon Voight—best known for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978), for which he won an Oscar—separated from her mother, the former model/actress Marcheline Bertrand, when Jolie was just a year old. Raised by her mother along with her older brother, James Haven, in Palisades, New York, Jolie made her feature film debut with a bit role in the poorly received 1982 film Lookin’ to Get Out, co-produced and co-written by Voight, who also starred.
Jolie began formally studying acting at the renowned Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York City at age 11. Five years later, she began living on her own, working as a professional model and appearing in music videos for artists including the Rolling Stones, Lenny Kravitz, Meat Loaf, and the Lemonheads. Moving back to Los Angeles, Jolie acted in several student films directed by her brother, who was then attending the University of Southern California film school; she also joined the Met Theater Group and performed alongside fellow members like Ed Harris and Holly Hunter.

After a couple forgettable films (including the direct-to-video Cyborg II: Glass Shadows), Jolie landed her first starring role in the 1995 cyber-thriller Hackers. Though the film met with a generally poor reception, Jolie earned praise for her performance; she also fell in love with co-star Jonny Lee Miller. At the couple’s wedding ceremony in March 1996, the unconventional bride wore black rubber pants and a shirt on which she had written the groom’s name in her own blood. Jolie and Miller separated less than a year later; they were divorced in 1999. Over the next several years, Jolie’s reputation as Hollywood’s newest “bad girl” grew steadily, even as a number of highly acclaimed performances established her as a talented A-list actress. In 1997, she earned an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe Award for her supporting turn in the TNT biopic George Wallace, starring Gary Sinise. She achieved the same feats—this time as Best Actress—the following year, for her emotionally-charged performance at the center of HBO’s Gia, based on the true story of Gia Carangi, a rebellious, heroin-addicted model who died of AIDS in the mid-1980s.

On the big screen, Jolie initially had less success, starring in several poorly received films, most notably Foxfire (1996) and Playing God (1997), co-starring Timothy Hutton and David Duchovny.