Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts

Date of Birth
28 October 1967, Smyrna, Georgia, USA

Birth Name
Julia Fiona Roberts

Nickname
Jules

Height
5' 9" (1.75 m)

Mini Biography

Julia Fiona Roberts, born in Smyrna, Georgia, never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. As a child, due to her love of animals, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but later studied journalism. When her brother, Eric Roberts, achieved some success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting. Her first break came in 1988 when she appeared in two youth-oriented movies Mystic Pizza (1988) and Satisfaction (1988). The movies introduced her to a new audience who instantly fell in love with this pretty woman. Julia's biggest success was in the signature movie Pretty Woman (1990), for which Julia got an Oscar nomination, and also won the People's Choice award for Favorite Actress. Even though Julia would spend the next few years either starring in serious movies, or playing fantasy roles like Tinkerbell, the movie audiences would always love Julia best in romantic comedies. With My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Julia gave the genre fresh life that had been lacking in Hollywood for some time. Offscreen, after a brief marriage, Julia has been romantically linked with several other actors. Julia has also become involved with UNICEF charities and has made visits to many different countries, including Haiti and India, in order to promote goodwill. Julia is one of the most popular and sought-after talents in Hollywood.
IMDb Mini Biography By: kdhaisch@aol.com

Spouse
Daniel Moder (4 July 2002 - present) 3 children
Lyle Lovett (25 June 1993 - 22 March 1995) (divorced)

Trivia

Lent her celebrity name to help raise money for research to develop a cure for Rett Syndrome (a disease which is potentially fatal and randomly strikes girls between the ages of 2 to 6 years).

Chosen of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by People magazine in 2000.

Has a half-sister, Nancy Motes (b. 1976).

Dated Benjamin Bratt from 1998 to June 2001.

Turned down the female lead in Shakespeare in Love (1998).

Ranked #66 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list (October 1997).

Was engaged to Kiefer Sutherland for a short period.

Dated Matthew Perry.

Sister of Lisa Roberts Gillan and Eric Roberts.

Played clarinet in the band. She attended Griffin Middle School and then Campbell High School.

Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1990 and 1991.

Has "movie within a movie" scenes in The Player (1992), Notting Hill (1999), America's Sweethearts (2001) and Full Frontal (2002).

Was considered for the role of Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin (1997).

She once tried out for a part on "All My Children" (1970), but was turned down.

Lived with Liam Neeson.

Dated Daniel Day-Lewis.

Born to Walter Grady Roberts, a vacuum cleaner salesman, and his wife Betty Lou Bredemus, a one-time church secretary and real estate agent.

Ranked #1 (in Hollywood Power) and #12 (in $$) on Forbes magazine 'Power 100'.

Tops the list of the 200 "hottest" actors and actresses in the business in "James Ulmer's Hollywood Hot List: The Complete Guide to Star Power - 2000" book which is published in October 2000 (June 2000).

Turned down the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct (1992).

Was engaged to her Steel Magnolias (1989) co-star, Dylan McDermott.

Beat out Sandra Bullock for the role of Maggie Carpenter in Runaway Bride (1999).

Lies on her back to have her make-up applied before going onto a film set -- she insists it gives her a relaxed look.

Frequently works with Steven Soderbergh

Sister-in-law of Tony Gillan

Sister-in-law of Eliza Roberts

Aunt of Emma Roberts

After George Clooney and Brad Pitt found out that she was going to be joining them in Ocean's Eleven (2001), they sent her a card that read "We heard that you get 20 per film" and in it was a $20 bill; the joke was that she reportedly gets $20 million per film.

Named one of People Magazine's '25 Most Intriguing People of 2001'.

Named one of E!'s "top 20 entertainers of 2001".

At the 2002 Peoples Choice Awards she admitted to being a huge fan of "Days of Our Lives" (1965) and asked to be seated near the cast.

Splits her down time between her ranch in Taos, New Mexico and a home in New York City

Was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People Magazine in 2002.

Was ranked 6th of the 100 Sexiest Women by FHM Taiwan (2001).

Married boyfriend, cameraman Daniel Moder, at their ranch home in Taos, New Mexico in a midnight ceremony. Bruce Willis was the only celebrity that attended her wedding to Daniel Moder. Julia wore a simple pink cotton halter dress by pal Judith Beylerian (4 July 2002).

She never acted in a sequel until Ocean's Twelve (2004).

She has Irish ancestry.

Moved from rank # 18 in 2002 to rank #16 in 2003 on Premiere's Annual Hollywood Power List. Also in 2003 Julia ranked #10 in Star TV's Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s. In 2005, Premiere Magazine Stars in Our Constellation feature ranked Julia as the #7 Greatest Movie Star of All Time. in their Stars in Our Constellation feature (2005).

Ranked #10 in Star TV's Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s (2003)

Measurements: 34B-23-34 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

She is a huge fan of actress Aishwarya Rai, whom she once commented on being "The most beautiful woman in the world, more beautiful than any Hollywood actress."

Pakistani film director Rauf Khalid wanted her to work in his film, and even invited her to Pakistan to discuss the project, but she refused because of prior commitments.

Observed art history classes at New York University in order to prepare for her role in Mona Lisa Smile (2003).

Her Oscar-winning performance as Erin Brockovich-Ellis was ranked #31 on the American Film Institute's Heroes list of the 100 years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains.

Announced that she and husband Daniel Moder are expecting twins. Twins run in her family. She is due in early 2005. [June 2004].

Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk wrote the song "Julia" about her after seeing her at a Los Angeles restaurant.

Shares a birthday with actor Joaquin Phoenix.

A 9000 year old female skeleton excavated in Bulgaria in November 2004, was called by the archaeologists "Julia Roberts" because of the perfect teeth it had. They said that woman would have had a perfect smile - just like the actress.

Gave birth to twins in Los Angeles, a son named Phinnaeus Walter and a daughter named Hazel Patricia on 28 November 2004.

Has worked with both Hector Elizondo and Richard Gere in two different movies, first in Pretty Woman (1990), and then again in Runaway Bride (1999).

Because Erin Brockovich-Ellis is right handed and Roberts is not, she had to learn to use her right hand for Erin Brockovich (2000).

Premiere Magazine ranked her as the #7 Greatest Movie Star of All Time in their Stars in Our Constellation feature (2005).

Has played an art historian twice, once in Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and also in Mona Lisa Smile (2003).

First actress to reach 20 million dollar mark salary (for Erin Brockovich (2000))

She and her Ocean's Eleven (2001) / Ocean's Twelve (2004) co-stars, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Elliott Gould, all have guest-starred on the TV show "Friends" (1994), though not in the same episodes

Was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People Magazine in 2005 and appeared on the cover of the May 9, 2005 issue.

"The Alchemist" is one of her favorite books.

Roberts' production company "Red Om" films is her husband Danny's second name reversed

As a gesture of thanks for giving her children music lessons, Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bills when the pregnant Mrs. Roberts' delivered her next child. That child ended up being Julia.

Early in her career, she auditioned unsuccessfully for two soap opera roles. She lost the part of "Linda Warner" to Melissa Leo on "All My Children" (1970); and the part of "Hayley Benson" to Stacy Edwards on "Santa Barbara" (1984).

Was named of the 100 Most Beautiful People by People Magazine in 2006.

Her great-grandmother Elin (Eleanor) was Swedish, born 1884 in Värmland, Sweden. She died in Minneapolis 1960, seven years before Julia was born.

Chosen "Sexiest Bespectacled Star" by the readers of "In Touch" magazine ahead of Felicity Huffman and Alicia Keys (November 2006).

Her Broadway debut in the play "Three Days of Rain" received terrible reviews for her performance and ran only 70 performances.

Longtime good friends with actor Denzel Washington and actress Susan Sarandon.

Daughter-in-law of Mike Moder.

Julia and her husband, Daniel Moder, are expecting their third child, due in Summer, 2007 [December 29, 2006].

Cited as America's Favorite Movie Star in a Harris Poll conducted in 2001.

Ranked #8 in Forbes the 20 Richest Women In Entertainment.

Drives a Toyota Prius (April 2004).

She won an Oscar for playing Erin Brockovich-Ellis in Erin Brockovich (2000), making her one of eleven actors to win the Award for playing a real person who was still alive at the evening of the Award ceremony (as of 2007). The other ten actors and their respective performances are: Spencer Tracy for playing Father Edward Flanagan in Boys Town (1938), Gary Cooper for playing Alvin C. York in Sergeant York (1941), Patty Duke for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962), Jason Robards for playing Benjamin C. Bradlee in All the President's Men (1976), Robert De Niro for playing Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), Sissy Spacek for playing Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Susan Sarandon for playing Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking (1995), Geoffrey Rush for playing David Helfgott in Shine (1996), Jim Broadbent for playing John Bayley in Iris (2001/I) and, most recently, Helen Mirren for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006).

An accomplished equestrienne, Julia did her own riding in Runaway Bride (1999).

Turned down leading role in Sleepless in Seattle (1993) which went to Meg Ryan.

Gave birth to a son, Henry Daniel Moder, on 18 June 2007 in Los Angeles. Henry weighed in at 8 1/2 lbs.

Daughter, Hazel Patricia, and son, Phinnaeus Walter (Finn), were born on 28 November 2004.

Received the American Cinematheque Award (10 October 2007).

Is an alumni of the Lee Strasberg Institute such as actors Frank Miranda, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Rosario Dawson, Dennis Hopper.

Five directors that cast Julia at least twice are: Mike Nichols, Steven Soderbergh, Garry Marshall, Robert Altman and Joel Schumacher.

Good friends with Bruce Willis.

After divorcing Walter Roberts in January 1972, her mother Betty Lou married theater critic Michael Motes (11 September 1972).

Her films have grossed more than $ 2 billion at the US box office, making her the biggest female movie star of all time (February 2007).

Has supported UNICEF enthusiastically.

Buys her own organic greens at the market near her apartment in New York.

In 2006, she earned $5 million for endorsing Gianfranco Ferre. She posed for eight print ads, which was equivalent for one day of work.

Named #57 on Empire Magazine's 100 Sexiest Movie Stars. (2007).

By 2004, she had a fortune estimated to be worth $212 million.

In 2007, Forbes Magazine estimated her earnings for the year at $9 million.

Personal Quotes

I enjoy hats. And when one has filthy hair, that is a good accessory.

I'm too tall to be a girl, I never had enough dresses to be a lady, I wouldn't call myself a woman. I'd say I'm somewhere between a chick and a broad.

My real hair color is kind of a dark blonde. Now I just have mood hair.

(From 1998 interview) "I've sort of grown into my cuteness."

"We all need to take a deep breath and think about being a Bush daughter and having that cross to bear. I'd go out and have a couple of drinks, too" - about President George W. Bush's daughters being caught with alcohol as minors.

"It doesn't bring out the Einstein moment that you hoped it would."-- Julia Roberts, on forgetting to include the real-life Erin Brockovich-Ellis in her Academy Award acceptance speech.

You know I'm like a total geek, right? First of all, I sit on the set and knit. It's a very social hobby, as opposed to reading at work - I can chat with people and still be fully engaged.

"He's embarrassing, he's not my president. He will never be my president" - talking about President George W. Bush.

I'm just an ordinary person who has an extraordinary job.

"I get dressed up like a doll, a nice man puts lipstick on my lips and I say words - it's deeply satisfying" - on the essence of her job

On why she will never do a nude scene: "I just don't feel that my algebra teacher should ever know what my butt looks like."

You can be true to the character all you want, but you've go to go home with yourself.

"The first time I felt I was famous was when I went to the movies with my mom. I had gone to the loo, and someone in the bathroom said in a very loud voice, 'Girl in stall No. 1, were you in Mystic Pizza (1988)? I paused and I said, yeah that was me." - (People Magazine 8/22/99)

I think it's dangerous to talk in the big generalities of sexism and ageism and face lift-isms. You really have to speak only from your own experience. And my experience so far has been ridiculously nice. Yeah, do the boys get paid more? Yes. But do we all get paid too much? Yes. I'm confused at what I'm supposed to complain about.

I wouldn't do nudity in films. To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary.

It's heaven truly... we were rehearsing one day, and we had just moved into the theater and it was dark out here, and I was on stage, and all of the sudden, I hear, 'Mama!' And Hazel had come in and in the dark just to hear this little voice, and it's incredibly amazing.

I think one of the smartest things I ever did for my career was not working for two years in the early 90s. I was being offered a lot of different movies but I just didn't see the point of any of them. People would say to me "How can you just be passing on all those things?" And my response was "Tell me a movie you've seen in the past year that I should have made."

I'm just a girl from a little town in Georgia who had this giant, absurd dream. [On her success.] (People Magazine)

Salary
Mona Lisa Smile (2003) $25,000,000
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) $250,000 (scale)
Ocean's Eleven (2001) $10,000,000
America's Sweethearts (2001) $15,000,000
The Mexican (2001) $20,000,000
Erin Brockovich (2000) $20,000,000
Runaway Bride (1999) $17,000,000
Notting Hill (1999) $15,000,000
Conspiracy Theory (1997) $12,000,000
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) $12,000,000
Mary Reilly (1996) $10,000,000
The Pelican Brief (1993) $8,000,000
Hook (1991) $7,000,000
Dying Young (1991) $3,000,000
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991) $1,000,000
Flatliners (1990) $500,000
Pretty Woman (1990) $300,000
Steel Magnolias (1989) $90,000
Mystic Pizza (1988) $50,000

Where Are They Now

(May 2002) Capital Hill, Washington, D.C., USA testifying for more federal funding for Rett Syndrome

(December 2004) She and her family are relaxing at their ranch in New Mexico after the birth of her new twins, Phinneaus and Hazel.

(April 2006) Making her Broadway debut in the revival of Richard Greenberg's play "Three Days of Rain". Her co-stars are Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper.

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) is an American film actress and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. She is often cited by popular media as one of the world's most beautiful women and her off-screen life is widely reported. She has received three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Academy Award.

Though she made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in the 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, Jolie's acting career began in earnest a decade later with the low budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). Jolie achieved international fame as a result of her portrayal of videogame heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best-known and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. She had her biggest commercial success with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, as well as a biological daughter, Shiloh. Jolie has promoted humanitarian causes throughout the world, and is noted for her work with refugees through UNHCR.

Early life and family

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, who died from ovarian cancer in 2007. Jolie is the niece of Chip Taylor, sister of James Haven and the god-daughter of Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father's side, she is of Slovak and German descent,and on her mother's side she is French Canadian and is said to be part Iroquois, although Voight once claimed Bertrand is "not seriously Iroquois," and they merely said it to enhance his ex-wife's exotic background.

After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was 11, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions. She later recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School (later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among the children of some of the area's more affluent families. Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces. Her self esteem was further diminished when her initial attempts at modeling proved unsuccessful. As her despondency grew, she started to cut herself; later commenting, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me." At 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director. Her self-loathing led her to embark on a rebellious period in her life; she wore black, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend. Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home. She returned to theatre studies and graduated from high school, though in recent times she has referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos".

Jolie has been long estranged from her father, though a reconciliation was attempted, and he appeared with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In July 2002, Jolie filed a request to legally change her name to "Angelina Jolie", dropping Voight as her surname; the name change was made official on September 12, 2002. In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his daughter had "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood. Jolie later indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don’t speak. I don’t hold any anger toward him. I don’t believe that somebody’s family becomes their blood. Because my son’s adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but because she had adopted her son, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight.

Early work, 1993–1997

Jolie began working as a fashion model at 14. She was signed with Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United States and Europe, working mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. At that time she also appeared in numerous music videos, including those of Meat Loaf ("Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through"), Antonello Venditti ("Alta Marea"), Lenny Kravitz ("Stand by My Woman"), and The Lemonheads ("It's About Time"). At the age of 16, Jolie returned to theatre, and played her first role as a German dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens".

Jolie appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but her professional movie career began in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the low budget film Cyborg 2, as Casella "Cash" Reese, a near-human robot, designed to seduce her way into a rival manufacturer's headquarters and then self-detonate. Following several undistinguished projects she starred as Kate "Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture, Hackers (1995), where she met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. The New York Times wrote, "Kate (Angelina Jolie) stands out. That's because she scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top. Despite her sullen posturing, which is all this role requires, Ms. Jolie has the sweetly cherubic looks of her father, Jon Voight." The movie failed to make a profit at the box-office, but developed a cult following after its video release.

She appeared as Gina Malacici in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family restaurant owners in the Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon she was a youngster, named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello, while he takes a shine to her mother, Anne Archer. In 1996, she also played Margret "Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond in the film Foxfire after they beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times wrote about Jolie's performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst."

In 1997, Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, a film portraying a famed L.A. surgeon who is stripped of his medical license and is lured deep into the criminal world where he meets Jolie’s character, Claire. The movie was not received well by critics and Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is."[20] She then appeared in the TV movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the West, and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle. That year she also played a stripper in the Rolling Stones music video for the song "Anybody Seen My Baby?"

Breakthrough, 1997–2000

Jolie's career prospects began to improve after her performance as Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biopic George Wallace for which she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy. The film was highly praised by critics and, among other awards, received the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries/Motion Picture made for TV. She played the second wife of the segregationist Governor of Alabama who was shot and paralyzed while running for President. The film starred Gary Sinise and was directed by John Frankenheimer.

In 1998, Jolie starred in HBO's Gia as supermodel Gia Carangi. The film depicted a world of sex, drugs and emotional drama, and chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her drug addiction, and her decline and death from AIDS. Vanessa Vance from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal—filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed."[21] For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting Jolie reportedly preferred to stay in character in between scenes during many of her early films, and as a result had gained a reputation for being difficult to deal with. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller that she wouldn't be able to phone him. "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"

Following Gia, Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a short period of time, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study filmmaking and attended writing classes. She described it as "just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors Studio.

Jolie returned to film as Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen, and later that year was part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Jon Stewart in Playing by Heart. The drama tells the story of several seemingly unconnected characters, with Jolie playing a young club-scene hipster, Joan. The film received predominantly positive reviews and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.

In 1999, she starred in Mike Newell's comedy-drama Pushing Tin, about two air traffic controllers who engage in macho conflict, co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's seductive wife Mary Bell. The film received a lukewarm reception from critics and Jolie's character was particularly criticized. The Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home." She then worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector, an adapted crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide, who reluctantly helps Washington track down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide, but was a critical failure; the Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."

Jolie next took the supporting role of Lisa Rowe alongside Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted (1999), a film that tells the story of mental patient Susanna Kaysen, and which was adapted from Kaysen's original memoir Girl, Interrupted. While the lead role of the film was Ryder's character, and was hoped to be a comeback for Ryder, the film instead became the "welcome-to-Hollywood coronation" for Jolie. Jolie won her third Golden Globe, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation"[28] and Roger Ebert wrote about her performance:
“ Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim. ”

In 2000, Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster, Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of car-thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, and the Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth." She later explained that the film was a welcome relief after the heavy role of Lisa Rowe, and it became her highest grossing movie up until then, earning $237 million internationally.

International success, 2001–present

Although highly regarded for her acting abilities, Jolie's films to date had often not appealed to a wide audience, but Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) made her an international superstar. An adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider videogame, Jolie was required to master a British accent and undergo extensive martial arts training to play the title role of Lara Croft. She was generally praised for her physical performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews. Slant Magazine commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but [director] Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger." The movie was a huge international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide,and launched her global reputation as a female action star.

Jolie then starred alongside Antonio Banderas as the mail-order bride Julia Russell in Original Sin, a thriller based on the novel Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. The film was a major critical failure, with The New York Times noting, "The story plunges more precipitously than Ms. Jolie's neckline."In 2002, she played Lanie Kerrigan in Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote, "Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points in the middle of the film, this Academy Award-winning actress is exceedingly believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of fulfilling life."

Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative as the original, earned $156 million at the international box-office.[3] Later that year Jolie starred in Beyond Borders, a film about aid workers in Africa. Although reflecting Jolie's real-life interest in promoting humanitarian relief, the film was critically and financially unsuccessful. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Jolie, as she did in her Oscar-winning role in Girl, Interrupted, can bring electricity and believability to roles that have a reality she can understand. She can also, witness the Lara Croft films, do acknowledged cartoons. But the limbo of a hybrid character, a badly written cardboard person in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world, completely defeats her."

In 2004, Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller Taking Lives, as Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler summoned to help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour." She also provided the voice of Lola, an angelfish in the animated DreamWorks movie Shark Tale; the cast included Will Smith, Martin Scorsese, Renée Zellweger, Jack Black and Robert De Niro. Also in 2004, Jolie had a brief appearance as Franky in Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a science fiction adventure film shot with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen. Jolie then played Olympias in Alexander (2004), Oliver Stone’s biopic about the life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, with Stone attributing its poor reception to disapproval of the depiction of Alexander’s homosexuality, but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United States.

Jolie's only movie of 2005, the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, is also her biggest commercial success to date. The film, directed by Doug Liman, tells the story of a bored married couple who find out that they are both secret assassins. Jolie starred as Jane Smith alongside Brad Pitt. The film was well received and was generally lauded for the chemistry between the two leads. The Star Tribune noted, "While the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry." The movie earned over $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.

Jolie next appeared in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), a film about the early history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Jolie co-starred as Margaret Russell, Wilson's neglected wife who becomes increasingly discontented by the effects of his work. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Jolie ages convincingly throughout, and is blithely unconcerned with how her brittle character is coming off in terms of audience sympathy."

In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary A Place in Time, which captures the life in 27 locations around the globe during a single week and features fellow actors such as Jude Law, Hilary Swank, Colin Farrell and Jonny Lee Miller. The film is intended to be distributed through the National Education Association, mainly in high schools. Jolie starred as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's documentary-style drama A Mighty Heart (2007), about the kidnap and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. The picture is based on Mariane Pearl's memoirs A Mighty Heart and had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving", played "with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult accent." The film earned her a fourth Golden Globe and her third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Jolie also played Grendel's mother in Robert Zemeckis' animated epic Beowulf (2007) which was created through the motion capture technique.

Jolie has completed shooting the action film Wanted, an adaptation of a graphic novel by Mark Millar, as well as the DreamWorks animated movie Kung Fu Panda, both scheduled for summer releases in 2008. She was also cast as the lead in Clint Eastwood's upcoming drama, Changeling, which wrapped principle photography in December 2007.

Humanitarian work

Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely mined Cambodia. Deeply affected by these experiences, she eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she agreed to visit different refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in these areas. In February 2001, Jolie went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed her shock at what she had witnessed.[43] In the coming months she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and later met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal.[44] She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits. Impressed by her interest and devotion in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.In a press conference Jolie explained her motives for joining the refugee agency:
“ We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us. ”

During her first three years as Goodwill Ambassador Jolie concentrated her efforts on field missions, visiting refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) all around the world. Asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, “Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon.” In 2002, Jolie visited Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador to take a closer look at the “Western Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis”. Jolie later went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. She also met with Angolan refugees while filming Beyond Borders in Namibia.
Jolie with Colin Powell in Washington, D.C., June 2004.
Jolie with Colin Powell in Washington, D.C., June 2004.

In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka. She later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders in October 2003 she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001-2002). During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Iraqi refugees in Jordan's remote eastern desert and later that month she went to Egypt to meet Sudanese refugees.

On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur. Also in 2004, Jolie met with Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.

In 2005, Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghan refugees, and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; she returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake. In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean, and while filming A Mighty Heart in India, Jolie met with Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi. She spent Christmas Day 2006 with Colombian refugees in San José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents. In 2007, Jolie returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the deteriorating security situation for refugees from Darfur; Jolie and Pitt subsequently donated $1 million to three relief organizations in Chad and Darfur. Jolie also made her first visit to Syria and Iraq, where she met with Iraqi refugees as well as multi-national forces and U.S. troops.
Jolie and Condoleezza Rice at World Refugee Day 2005.
Jolie and Condoleezza Rice at World Refugee Day 2005.

With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. She regularly attends World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., and she was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005 and 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with congressmen and senators at least 20 times from 2003. She explained in Forbes:
“ As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball.”

In 2005, Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon, where she announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of $500,000 for its first two years. Jolie also pushed for several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World. In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using the public’s interest in her to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. She filmed a MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on a trip to a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. There, Sachs's United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to end poverty, hunger and disease. In 2006, Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders of $1 million each.[50] Jolie also co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, founded at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006, which helps fund education programs for children affected by conflict.

Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the newly created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there.In 2007, Jolie became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she received the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee.

Relationships

On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers. She attended her wedding in black leather pants and a white shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood.[41] Jolie and Miller separated the following year and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. They remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "It comes down to timing. I think he's the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I'll always love him, we were simply too young."

She then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton, whom she had met on the set of Pushing Tin, on May 5, 2000. As a result of their frequent public declarations of passion and gestures of love (most famously wearing one another's blood in vials around their necks), their relationship became a favorite topic of the entertainment media. Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked in Vogue about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but... I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet."

Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." In 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"

In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the "other woman" in the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith; however, she has denied this in several interviews. In an interview in 2005, she explained, "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."

While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented on the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. The first intimate paparazzi photos emerged in April, one month after Aniston had filed for divorce; they showed Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer Jolie and Pitt were seen together with increasing frequency and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006 Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirmed their relationship for the first time in public.

Children

On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, seven-month-old Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt (originally Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie). He was born on August 5, 2001 as Rath Vibol in Cambodia, and he initially lived in a local orphanage in Battambang. Jolie decided to apply for adoption after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming Tomb Raider and on a UNHCR field trip in 2001. After her divorce from her second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie received sole custody of Maddox. Like Jolie's other children, Maddox has gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the tabloid media.

Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt (originally Zahara Marley Jolie), on July 6, 2005. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005; her original name has been reported as either Tena Adam or Yemsrach. Jolie picked her up at a Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition. In 2007, media outlets reported Zahara's biological mother, Mentewabe Dawit, was still alive and wanted her daughter back, but she later denied these reports, saying she thought Zahara was a "very fortunate human being to be adopted by a world famous lady".

Brad Pitt was reportedly present when Jolie signed the adoption papers and collected her daughter;[41] later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara together.[61] In December 2005 it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children, and on January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".

On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, in Swakopmund, Namibia by a scheduled caesarean section. Pitt confirmed that their newly-born daughter will have a Namibian passport,[63] and Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these extremely valuable snapshots. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide – the most expensive celebrity image of all time. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it was the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from Vietnam, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt (originally Pax Thien Jolie), who was born on November 29, 2003 and abandoned at birth at a local hospital, where he was initially named Pham Quang Sang.Jolie adopted the boy from the Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City.[69] Jolie revealed that his first name, Pax, was suggested by her mother before her death.

Jolie in the media

Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous father Jon Voight. At seven she had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986 and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards as a teenager with him. However, when she started her acting career, Jolie decided not to use “Voight” as a stage name, because she wished to establish her own identity as an actress. Jolie was never shy about controversy and integrated her teenage "wild girl" image into her public persona in the first years of her career. During her acceptance speech at the 2000 Academy Awards, Jolie declared, "I'm so in love with my brother right now", which, combined with her affectionate behavior towards him that night, sparked speculation in the tabloid media of an incestuous relationship with her brother James Haven. She has denied those rumors vehemently, and Jolie and Haven later explained in interviews that after their parents' divorce they relied on one another and because of that they hold on to each other as a means of emotional support.

Jolie is noted as "the one A-list celebrity without a publicist", and she quickly became a tabloid's favorite, since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews, discussing her love life and her interest in BDSM openly,[8] and once claiming to be "most likely to sleep with a female fan". As one of her most distinctive physical features, Jolie's lips have attracted notable media attention and she has been described as "the current gold standard of beauty in the West" among women seeking cosmetic surgery. She also created headlines with her much publicized marriage to Billy Bob Thornton and her subsequent change into an advocate for global humanitarian problems. As she took on the role of UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador she started to use her celebrity to highlight humanitarian causes worldwide. Jolie has been taking flying lessons since 2004 and she has a private pilot license and an instrument rating. The media speculated that Jolie is a Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. Jolie has not stated definitively whether or not she believes in God. When asked in 2000 if there was a God, she said, "For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me."

Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters described it in their story "The Brangelina fever".[4] Trying to avoid the media attention, the couple went to Namibia for the birth of “the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ”, as it had been described.

Today, Jolie is one of the best known celebrities around the world. According to the Q Score, in 2000, subsequent to her Oscar win, 31 % of respondents in the United States said Jolie was familiar to them, by 2006 she was familiar to 81 % of Americans. In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets Jolie, together with Brad Pitt, was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products worldwide. Also in 2006, Jolie was among the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, and she was described as the world's most beautiful woman in the "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People. On Forbes Magazine's annual Celebrity 100 list, Jolie was ranked at No. 35 in 2006,[78] and No. 14 in 2007.[79] In February 2007, she was voted the greatest sex symbol of all time in the British Channel 4 television show The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols.

Tattoos

Jolie's inventory of tattoos has become the subject of much media attention and has often been addressed by interviewers. Jolie stated that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, the large number of tattoos on her body has forced filmmakers to become more creative when planning nude or love scenes.[80] Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her productions. Jolie currently has 13 known tattoos, among them the Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages", which she got together with her mother, the Arabic phrase "العزيمة" (strength of will), the Latin proverb "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me destroys me),[81] and a Yantra prayer written in the ancient Khmer and Pali scripts for her son Maddox.[82] She also has four sets of geographical coordinates on her upper left arm indicating the birthplaces of her children.[83] Over time she covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including "Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, a Chinese character for death (死), and a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed the window, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.[23]

Filmography
Year Title Role
1982 Lookin' to Get Out Tosh
1993 Cyborg 2 Casella "Cash" Reese
1995 Hackers Kate "Acid Burn" Libby
1996 Mojave Moon Eleanor "Elie" Rigby
Love Is All There Is Gina Malacici
Foxfire Margret "Legs" Sadovsky
1997 Playing God Claire
True Women (TV) Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods
George Wallace (TV) Cornelia Wallace
1998 Gia (TV) Gia Marie Carangi
Hell's Kitchen Gloria McNeary
Playing by Heart Joan
Pushing Tin Mary Bell
1999 The Bone Collector Amelia Donaghy
Girl, Interrupted Lisa Rowe
2000 Gone in Sixty Seconds Sara "Sway" Wayland
2001 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Lara Croft
Original Sin Julia Russell
2002 Life or Something Like It Lanie Kerrigan
2003 Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life Lara Croft
Beyond Borders Sarah Jordan
2004 Taking Lives Illeana Scott
Shark Tale Lola (voice)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Franky
Alexander Olympias
2005 Mr. & Mrs. Smith Jane Smith
2006 The Good Shepherd Margaret Russell
2007 A Mighty Heart Mariane Pearl
Beowulf Grendel's mother
2008 Wanted Fox
Kung Fu Panda Master Tigress (voice)
Changeling Christine Collins

Awards
Year Award Category Film Result
1998 Emmy Award Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie George Wallace Nominated
Golden Globe Award Best Supporting Actress - Series/Miniseries/TV Movie Won
National Board of Review Award Breakthrough Performance - Female Playing by Heart Won
Emmy Award Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie Gia Nominated
1999 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV Won
Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries Won
2000 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Girl, Interrupted Won
Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Won
Academy Award Best Actress in a Supporting Role Won
2008 Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama A Mighty Heart Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Award Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Nominated

Brad and Angelina's Old-Fashioned Romance

By STEPHEN FARBER
Published: June 5, 2005
Correction Appended
Los Angeles

EVEN the title is evocative: "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" calls to mind a classic Hollywood star vehicle of the past, perhaps even the identically named 1941 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In that picture, two stars of the era, Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard, played a "squabbling Punch and Judy," according to The New York Times's review. Today's Mr. and Mrs. Smith, played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie - as everyone within range of a billboard or bus stop must know by now - are still squabbling. But now they are hired killers, working for rival companies, who set out to assassinate each other.

Almost in spite of itself, the new movie remains a romantic comedy in the tradition that Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and Frank Capra perfected more than half a century ago. Those giant figures of Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie in the omnipresent marketing campaign descend from the glamour treatment lavished on major stars in the heyday of Gable and Lombard.

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While movie stars now command far heftier salaries than those legendary performers ever dreamed of - and still have a lock on the nation's magazine covers - it's actually rare to find a movie today that is motored by sheer star power. As films grew more expensive, studios got nervous about entrusting them to mere mortals. Instead, they began to shelter even the biggest stars with special effects, comic-book trappings or familiar franchises. In the latest version of "War of the Worlds," Tom Cruise has to do little more than look terrified or ferociously determined as he battles alien invaders; the main attractions are the flying saucers and the spectacular conflagrations. In the new adaptation of the television series "Bewitched," Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell are depending on viewers' affection for beloved sitcom characters; the concept is the star, and the actors are really just along for a ride on the broomstick.

Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie, of course, will be surrounded by expensive special effects and ferocious gun battles when 20th Century Fox introduces "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on Friday. But the pair will still have to banter, flirt, display their star wattage - and put their outsize celebrity personas on the line. In that sense this new movie is a lot more demanding than their other recent outings. Mr. Pitt was basically a piece of swinging weaponry in "Troy," and he melted into the wisecracking ensembles of "Ocean's Eleven" and "Ocean's Twelve," while Ms. Jolie struck poses as Lara Croft and spouted an indecipherable accent in her supporting role in the stillborn "Alexander."

In their new movie, the two actors will have to face the music. They're both front and center in a battle-of-the-sexes comedy that depends on movie star magnetism. The question audiences will answer is whether these two highly publicized stars have the sizzle to keep a vital romantic movie tradition alive. And an even more important question hangs in the balance: Does Hollywood still have the know-how to refresh one of its tastiest formulas?

When "It Happened One Night" swept the Oscars in 1934, it established a new kind of romantic comedy, one that depended on a battle of wits between two strong-willed lovers. In that movie, Claudette Colbert played a runaway heiress, and Clark Gable was a cynical newspaper reporter who didn't let on that he knew her real identity. In other words, their relationship was marked by suspicion and deception as well as an undercurrent of desire, and that mixture of attraction and repulsion is what some of the best romantic movies possess. Howard Hawks played many variations on this formula in films like "Twentieth Century" (with John Barrymore as a theatrical impresario and Carole Lombard as the temperamental actress he discovered) and "His Girl Friday" (with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as formerly married journalists wrangling in the newsroom).

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn struck sparks (both on screen and off) in the first movie they made together, "Woman of the Year," and they continued to spar in many of their later romantic comedies, most notably in "Adam's Rib," when they played married lawyers who found themselves on opposite sides of a criminal trial. In some of the most memorable scenes in that movie, their verbal jousts give way to physical jabs, as when he slaps her behind while giving her a rubdown and later when she kicks him viciously in the shins.

In "Pillow Talk" (1959) and again in "Lover Come Back" (1961), Doris Day and Rock Hudson also played professional rivals who engaged in lies, dirty tricks and sadistic humiliations before their inevitable final clinch. A higher level of danger entered the picture in Hitchcock's 1959 caper, "North by Northwest," when Cary Grant exchanged teasing innuendoes with the sultry Eva Marie Saint, who happened to be in cahoots with the spies plotting to kill him.

Stanley Donen's "Charade" (1963) worked its own stylish variations on the Hitchcockian formula. Grant and Audrey Hepburn slipped into a mating dance flecked with menace; she was unsure until the very end of the movie if he was a lover or a murderer in search of the fortune left by her late husband. The movie was criticized at the time for daring to mix lighthearted romantic comedy with macabre violence, an explosive combo that is driven to its illogical conclusion in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

It seems likely that Simon Kinberg, the writer of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and Doug Liman, the director, had some of these earlier movies - or more recent iterations, like John Huston's "Prizzi's Honor" and Danny De Vito's "War of the Roses" - firmly in mind while they were creating their black comedy. But this new picture highlights the dramatic changes in the cinematic landscape over the last half-century. What could once be expressed entirely in witty repartee and suggestive physical byplay (like Colbert extending her leg to flag down a ride in "It Happened One Night"), or later in the brutal verbiage of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," now requires the kinetic energy of punches, kicks, shooting and stabbing.

Movies have grown darker over the decades, but they've also grown more insecure. Filmmakers and studio executives no longer trust such niceties as dialogue, characterization, style or even movie star charisma to involve viewers in lovers' conflicts. Instead, today's filmmakers feel the need to pump up the volume and ramp up the firepower to make sure they hold the interest of impatient audiences.

Yet Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie, though backed by a deafening array of explosions, can't escape their challenge in this one. There is virtually no supporting cast; the only other actor with a significant role, Vince Vaughn, doesn't even get a screen credit. So the two stars, if they succeed in igniting the box office, may not exactly revive the genre of scintillating romantic comedy. But they will have kept it from dying out altogether.

Correction: June 19, 2005, Sunday:

An article on June 5 about the relationship of the current film "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" to the tradition of the Hollywood romantic comedy referred incorrectly to the plot of an earlier movie, "It Happened One Night" (1934). The newspaper reporter played by Clark Gable tells the runaway heiress played by Claudette Colbert that he knows her real identity shortly after he discovers it; he does not pretend that he doesn't know.

Can Angelina Jolie Really Save the World?

THE Rolls Royce of business conferences glides to its conclusion here today, capping a week of stimulating, high-minded discourse that makes the gathering such a hot ticket each year among chief executives, politicians, academics, journalists, the nonprofit set and the occasional celebrity.

Look, there's Angelina Jolie! Angelina, how is the world faring on the health and human rights fronts? Oh, my gosh! It's Bono! Bono, what needs to be done about African poverty? Hey, Richard Gere and Sharon Stone, how can we tackle the AIDS crisis?

But this 34th annual conference of the World Economic Forum also scored 23 heads of state, 72 cabinet-level ministers, and about 500 global business leaders. Among the attendees were Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain; Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman; Viktor A. Yushchenko, the new president of Ukraine; Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the Google co-founders; former President Bill Clinton; Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader; and the South African novelist Nadine Gordimer.

Amid the panel discussions on global crises, technological innovation and effective management was a seminar, scheduled for Saturday, on ''Star Power and Social Change.'' The literature for that one stated that ''celebrities have become powerful advocates for social, political and economic causes'' and asked this tough follow-up question: ''What accounts for this trend?'' (For executives who do not want to shell out $37,600 in annual membership fees and charges to attend next year's panel, here is one possible four-word answer: Because they are sexy.)

It is easy, of course, to take potshots at the forum, perhaps the only conference that bills itself as ''Committed to Improving the State of the World.'' The world is, after all, a very big place. It is also easy to poke fun at a conference that advises invitees to monitor their own greenhouse gas emissions: the forum provided a handy formula to determine how much carbon dioxide each guest was likely to produce during the week.

Yet the Davos conference is not so easily dismissed. This year's agenda, gathered under the theme of ''Taking Responsibility for Tough Choices,'' required attendees to consider topics as wide-ranging as world trade, pollution, poverty, globalization, American leadership, Islam and the Middle East, China's meteoric economic ascent, corporate governance, AIDS and other health care issues, financial corruption and weapons of mass destruction.

Moreover, many of the forum's 2,250 participants appeared to be fully engaged by its spirit and goals. Mr. Gere gave one of the gathering's most informed and passionate speeches addressing the AIDS crisis. Ms. Stone deployed her star power to great effect on Friday, rallying attendees at a poverty seminar to contribute $1 million to fight malaria in Tanzania. But beyond the high-caliber guest list, ambitious agenda, breathtaking Alpine setting and extraordinary food and wine, does the forum amount to anything more than Oscar-worthy hobnobbing?

''If we didn't exist someone would need to create us,'' said Klaus Schwab, the forum's founder and executive chairman. ''Global challenges are not solved by business alone, by politics alone, by not-for-profits alone. They are solved by collaboration, and it requires a multi-stakeholder platform.''

Business leaders, by far the forum's dominant cohort, as well as some academics and nonprofit leaders who attended, said the quality of the discussions made the event worthwhile.

The forum also allowed for those random moments when Michael Dell, the Dell Inc. founder, was suddenly standing next to you at the urinals; when Craig O. McCaw, the cellphone service pioneer, gently sidled up next to you at a reception; or when the currency speculator George Soros and the political guru David Gergen were at your shoulder, deep in conversation.

''Obviously, I see value in the conference,'' said N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman of Infosys Technologies of India and co-chairman of this year's forum. ''I don't know of any other conference that brings together politicians, artists, brilliant physicists, Nobel laureate winners and spiritual leaders.

By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN

Published: January 30, 2005

Paris Hilton

In an era obsessed with celebrity, no one has come to epitomize the famous-for-being famous cycle more completely than Paris Hilton. An heiress whose party girl antics first made her steady fodder for gossip pages, Ms. Hilton used her fame to become a model, singer, actor and fashion designer, as well as the punch line for thousands of jokes on late-night television.