Angelina Jolie and Her Inspiring Life

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Who does not know Angelina Jolie?

She is really beautiful, smart, talented and very down-to-earth movie actress that I know since the early 2000s. Firstly, I watched her movie debut titled, Tomb Raider. She was really amazing on that movie. She was played a role as a brave and very strong woman which actually her character came from one of the best adventure game, called 'Lara Croft - Tomb Raider'. The movie itself has two editions, they are; Lara Croft - Tomb Raider (2001), and Lara Croft Tomb Raider - The Craddle of Life (2003). Both are captivating for me.

She was born on 4th June 1975 in Los Angeles, California and she began acting at young age. In the 1990s, Angelina Jolie became a popular actress. She gave a star-making performance in the 1998 television film Gia based on the short, tragic life of model Gia Marie Carangi, which won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

Another great dramatic role in Girl, Interrupted (1999) brought Jolie her first Academy Award (for best supporting actress). She has continued to take on a variety of interesting roles, such as an adventurer in the Lara Croft films, a FBI profiler in Taking Lives (2004), an assassin in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and a neglected, troubled socialite wife in The Good Shepherd (2006).

And I am getting adore her when she became the lead role in the action-packed Salt (2010). The movie is about a CIA agent, Evelyn Salt, who is on the run after being accused of being a Russian spy. She was really amazing in this movie. She became stronger than before. Her character in this movie, its really strong. She was really brave and unbeatable.

Evelyn Salt - SALT

The same year, she earned the featured part of Elise Clifton-Ward in The Tourist alongside Johnny Depp. This was a combination between action-comedy movie. Moreover, when she was paired with the most funniest actor for me, Johnny Depp. The movie set took a place in Venice, Italy. The most romantic country for me.

Elise Clifton - THE TOURIST

She has been cast in the title role of Maleficent. Maleficent is a re-imagining of Disney's classic animation Sleeping Beauty (1959), retold from the point of view of its villainess, the fairy Maleficent. Her character in this movie was really amazing! The movie was uncovering a great mystery behind the real story before. You will know the unexpected journey in this movie.

Maleficent - MALEFICENT

A devoted humanitarian, Angelina Jolie was made a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency in 2001. She has made headlines for her work to obtain aid for refugees in Cambodia, Darfur and Jordan, to name just a few. In this role she conducted more than 40 field visits around the world, becoming well-versed in the phenomenon of forced displacement and a tireless advocate on their behalf.

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.

After years of dedicated service to UNHCR and the cause of refugees, Angelina Jolie in April 2012 was appointed as Special Envoy of UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. In her new and expanded role, she will be focusing on major crises resulting in mass population displacements; undertaking advocacy and representing UNHCR and Guterres at the diplomatic level; and engaging with decision-makers on global displacement issues. Through this work, she will help contribute to the vital process of finding solutions for people displaced by conflict.

In addition to her field missions for UNHCR, Jolie has made it her mission to give a voice to refugees and internally displaced people. She undertakes advocacy on their behalf, representing UNHCR and the High Commissioner at the diplomatic level and engaging with others on global displacement issues. Her work helps to facilitate lasting solutions for people displaced by conflict and has inspired others to take a more active role.

The Special Envoy’s commitment to the organization is further demonstrated through her donations to UNHCR, amounting to more than $5 million since 2001. The funds have gone towards building schools – in locations such as Kenya and Afghanistan – as well as other initiatives aimed at improving the lives of the forcibly displaced.

In addition to her work for UNHCR, Jolie continues to travel to bear witness to and support disaster relief, vulnerable children, environmental conservation, and international law and justice efforts worldwide. In 2003, she started the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, dedicated to conservation in Cambodia, which later expanded to agriculture, education, health care, vocational training, infrastructure, rural planning and microcredit programs.

In 2005, she launched the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal aid to young asylum-seekers. In 2008, she partnered with Microsoft to launch Kids in Need of Defence (KIND), a pro bono movement of law firms, corporate law departments, NGOs and volunteers committed to providing legal advice to unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States. She also co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which helps fund education programmes for children affected by conflict.

In 2007, Jolie became a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Jolie has since funded various CFR special reports, including the “Intervention to Stop Mass Atrocities and Genocide.” Following several visits to Haiti in 2010, she established the Jolie Legal Fellows Program to enhance government capacity around the rule of law. The program places young lawyers within the existing structures in Haiti to support the government’s child protection efforts.

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation, meanwhile, has provided funding in Namibia to the N/a’an ku sê Wildlife Sanctuary for the care of injured wildlife and to help minimize conflict between humans and wild animals. Jolie has funded children’s centres in Cambodia and Ethiopia which apply innovative and integrated treatment for children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

You can also read her journals personal impressions and reflections during her field missions as Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency here.

In 2002, Angelina Jolie adopted a son from Cambodia and named him Maddox. Three years later, she adopted a daughter, Zahara. In 2005, actor Brad Pitt, her boyfriend at that time, filed paperwork to adopt both of Jolie's children. The couple's first biological daughter, Shiloh, was born in the African country of Namibia in 2006. In March 2007, Angelina Jolie added a new member to her family. She adopted a 3-year-old boy from a Vietnamese orphanage and named him Pax Thien. Jolie gave birth to twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, on July 12, 2008, in a seaside hospital in southern France.

She experienced a great personal loss in early 2007, when her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56 after she fought the disease for a decade. Her grandmother also died from cancer. Her doctors said to her, she had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman. Back then, she decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much as she could. She made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. She started with the breasts, because her risk of breast cancer is higher than her risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex. Long story short, she had tried to run the 3 months medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. It was really sad to read her story to fought her illness. She wrote a diary about her disease to inspire all of women through her experience. (Read: My Medical Choice)

The stories behind her disease didn't stop there, she always check her condition more often. She always try to found out that there are always any options behind every problems to be solved. Just what she said, "It is not easy to make these decisions. But it is possible to take control and tackle head-on any health issue. You can seek advice, learn about the options and make choices that are right for you. Knowledge is power." Fortunately, in every toughest situations that she went through, her husband and her children always be there for her. The things that she couldn't ask for more. (Read more: Diary of a Surgery)

As her husband, Brad Pitt, keep trying to stay beside her, even he was thinking to gave up, but because of his true love for her, he fought with her. He keep her in every situations that they had. He even made a love letter about her wife and he wanted to tell the world about the real meaning of true love. The love letter was touch my heart and make me believe, in this earth, even if its painful, the true love is still exist.

The Brad Pitt love letter to Angelina Jolie:

My wife got sick. She was constantly nervous because of problems at work, personal life, her failures and problems with children. She had lost 30 pounds and weighed about 90 pounds in her 35 years. She got very skinny and was constantly crying. She was not (a) happy woman. She had suffered from continuing headaches, heart pain and jammed nerves in her back and ribs. She did not sleep well, falling asleep only in the morning; got tired very quickly during the day.

Our relationship was on the verge of break up. Her beauty was leaving her somewhere, she had bags under her eyes, she was poking her head, and stopped taking care of herself. She refused films and rejected any roles. I lost hope and thought that we’ll get divorced soon… But then I decided to act. After all I’ve got the most beautiful woman on the earth. She is the ideal of more than half of men and women on earth, and I was the one allowed to fall asleep next to her and to hug her shoulders. I began to pepper her with flowers, kisses and compliments. I surprised her and pleased her every minute. I gave her lots of gifts and lived just for her. I spoke in public only about her. I incorporated all themes in her direction. I praised her in front of our mutual friends and her own. You won’t believe, but she has blossomed. She became even better than before. She gained weight, was no longer nervous and she loved me even more than ever. I had no clue that she CAN love that much. And then I realized one thing: the woman is the reflection of her man.

If you love her to the point of madness, she will become it

Brad Pitt

Source:

Biography | The Asian Parent | The New York Times | UNHCR

#movie #humanrights #women #ideas #inspiring