The Secret World of Angelina Jolie
- Sep 4, 2015
- 3 min read
There is no doubt that Angelina Jolie is one of the most famous women in the world. Her acting may have put her in the spotlight, but it's her beauty and resistance to cultural norms that have made her a super celebrity. Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie Voight was born on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, California, to actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand. She began acting at a young age, studying at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute while in her early teens. Jolie later attended New York University.
A devoted humanitarian, Angelina Jolie has made headlines for obtaining aid for refugees in Cambodia, Darfur and Jordan. Angelina become aware of the extent of the problems people around the world face when she filmed Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in Cambodia in 2001. She later said that seeing and meeting the people of that war-ravaged country 'opened my eyes.' The suffering of the people in Cambodia caused Angelina to contact the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to find out how she could help. She then went on her first overseas mission - an 18-day trip to Sierra Leone and Tanzania.
She followed that up with a two-week trip back to Cambodia and then met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Not long after she was named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and her humanitarian work really got going. Since being appointed as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina has visited over 30 countries and even risked her life several times.
Angelina is beyond admirable in her courage for visiting highly volatile areas, during her time as a Goodwill Ambassador she's visited Darfur in Sudan during ferocious conflict, Chad during its civil war, Iraq and Libya during the Libyan revolution. Angelina, focuses her attention on refugees and people who have been displaced due to conflict. This cause has seen her visit places like, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Cambodia, Pakistan, Thailand, Ecuador, Kosovo, Kenya, Namibia, Sri Lanka, North Caucasus, Jordan, Egypt, New Delhi, Costa Rica, Chad, Syria, and Iraq. Not just that, she has also helped those who have been displaced by natural disasters, including earthquake victims in Haiti.
Angelina is said to be supporting 29 charities and foundations in total, a few which she set up and the rest which she finances. In 2003, she founded the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which is dedicated to community development and environmental conservation in Cambodia. In 2007, Angelina joined forces with economist Dr. Gene Sperling and founded the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which funds education for children affected by man-made or natural disasters. And in 2008, she worked with Microsoft to set up the Kids in Need of Defense, a group of law firms and volunteers who have committed to giving legal counsel for immigrant kids in the US.
Both Angelina and Brad, dig deep when it comes to charity, with the pair donating millions and millions of their own money each year. In 2009 records reveal that the couple gave at least $7m to charitable causes. When Brad and Angelina's twins, Knox and Vivienne, were born, the couple sold the first images of the babies to People and Hello! for $14 million, using the entire amount to help fund the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation.
Angelina used her directorial debut to highlight the horrors of the war in the former Yugoslavia, for which, she and some of the cast of the film received threats. At the movie's premiere in Sarajevo, she said: 'There were things sent to me, there were things posted online. The cast has never complained to me about these threats, but I've heard through other people it was happening. One of them did have their windows smashed in on their cars and someone else had an issue when their phone was hacked and emails were sent out saying they were from them and saying they had been hurt.'
Despite her selfless humanitarian work, generous charity donations and her role as a devoted mother, it was Angelina's announcement that she had undergone a preventative double mastectomy really won people's admiration.
Not only did the star take the brave decision to have the dramatic surgery, after discovering that she had a high chance of developing cancer, the same disease that killed her beloved mother, Marchelline Bertrand, in 2007, but she wrote a moving op-Ed piece in the New York Times so that other women would hopefully benefit from her decision.
In 2005, Jolie received the Global Humanitarian Action Award from the United Nations Association of the USA for her activism on behalf of refugee rights. She continues to travel the world to drawing attention to global issues.
Adapted from Bio. and Newsweek
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