Angelina Jolie is known to most moviegoers as the live-action version of the video game heroine Lara Croft, whom she has portrayed in Tomb Raider (2001) and Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (2003). In 1998 Jolie made a splash playing doomed model Gia Carerra in the HBO movie Gia, then became a big-time movie star after winning an Oscar for her supporting role in the 1999 Winona Ryder film Girl, Interrupted. Jolie's brooding Gothic-sexy presence (and tattoos) made her a hit with the younger generation especially, and her wild-life off-screen antics made her a hit with the tabloids while she was married to actor Billy Bob Thornton (2000-2003). Her other films include Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000, with Nicolas Cage), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004, starring Jude Law) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005, opposite Brad Pitt).

Jolie is the daughter of Jon Voight, who won a Best Actor Oscar for the 1978 movie Coming Home (the same movie for which Jane Fonda won Best Actress)... Jolie played Cornelia Wallace, wife to Alabama governor George Wallace, in the 1997 TV movie George Wallace. A favorite subject of the gossip sheets, Jolie was romantically linked in 2005 with her Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star, Brad Pitt; late in 2005, Pitt's publicist announced that he was filing papers to adopt Jolie's children. On 31 July 2005 a royal decree was signed by King Norodom Sihamoni approving Jolie for Cambodian citizenship.