Angelina Jolie was born under the sign Gemini, which makes sense given her complex and contradictory nature. On one side she’s a man-eating bad girl; on the other an elegant, sensitive, world-wise humanitarian. In Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography (in stores Saturday, St. Martin’s, $26.99), author Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story) spends much of the book examining Jolie’s dysfunctional family relationships and her string of lovers — starting with a parent-sanctioned live-in boyfriend at age 14 and ending with current partner Brad Pitt, the father of her six children.
A common thread throughout is Jolie’s habit of going after unavailable men — ironic, given that a lot of Jolie’s “issues” stem from her parents’ breakup, which involved her father cheating on her mother. When speculation was brewing regarding her relationship with Pitt, she famously denied being a homewrecker, stating she doesn’t date married men. Later both would admit they fell in love on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” (2005). Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time.
On the set of “Playing God” (1997), co-stars Timothy Hutton, who was dating Uma Thurman, and David Duchovny, who was seeing Tea Leoni, vied for Angelina’s attention. She flirted with both and ultimately took up with Hutton.
Mick Jagger — married at the time to Jerry Hall, who was expecting their fourth child — reportedly pursued Jolie for two years at the urging of Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand.
The available John Cusack had hopes of scoring with Jolie on the set of “Pushing Tin” (1999), but the bad girl in her had eyes only for co-star Billy Bob Thornton, who eventually left his fiancee Laura Dern — Jolie’s onetime baby-sitter — to marry Jolie in Vegas.
First husband Jonny Lee Miller may have been unattached when they met on the set of “Hackers” (1995), but years later, after they’d divorced, all she had to do was come calling and he called off the “fairy tale” wedding he was planning with his fiancee and ran to Jolie’s side. He was among the string of secret London lovers she cited to the press after her divorce from Thornton in 2002.
Colin Farrell chased Jolie on the set of “Alexander” (2004). She flirted but was uninterested. Farrell was single at the time.
Morton’s frequent source throughout the book, Dr. Franziska DeGeorge, “who has practiced in Beverly Hills for nearly 20 years and never treated Angelina or her family,” traces this destructive relationship pattern and Jolie’s prior issues — cutting, drug use, anorexia and depression — back to her troubled beginnings. One of Morton’s few on-the-record sources, former baby-sitter Krisann Morel, recalls Marcheline moving the infant Angelina to a separate apartment and rarely visiting her.
Marcheline’s reasoning was that baby Angie looked too much like her father, actor Jon Voight, and she couldn’t bear the constant reminder that he’d left her for another woman. This dynamic would change, but the rift between her parents would consume the lives of Jolie and her brother James.
Morton’s portrait of Voight is mostly a sympathetic one of a guy who remained involved in his kids’ lives and tried to be a positive influence, even as his ex-wife continually bad-mouthed him. You wonder why his relationship with his kids isn’t better. It’s possible the strained, on-again/off-again relationship between him and Jolie is because they’re so much alike.
They share not only the infidelity gene, but also their acting talent (both are Oscar winners) and activism, with Jolie in recent years being named a UN goodwill ambassador. It’s a role that certainly has helped soften her wild-child image. That and her growing, interracial family, which just might be the glue that holds her life together from here on.
It’s hard to believe Jolie is only 35 years old. After reading Angelina, you get the feeling she’s already lived a lifetime and then some.
LEARNED IN ‘ANGELINA’
• • Angelina’s newlywed parents Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand went for a drive in the country while Voight was filming “Conrack” in Georgia. “They ended up following a church bus with the words ‘Shiloh Baptist’ painted on the back,” Morton writes. “Jon suggested that Shiloh would be a good name for their next child. … Marche demurred, saying that the name was too Hebrew.” Years later, Marcheline would suggest the name to Angelina for her first biological child.
• • Angelina’s godparents are actors Maximilian Schell and Jacqueline Bisset.
• • • Angelina once peed in an empty Mountain Dew bottle, chilled it in the fridge and then gave it to her father’s mistress, Stacey Pickren.
• • Angelina, always fascinated with death, at one time wanted to be a funeral director, going so far as to complete a test from the Funeral Service Institute handbook.
• • Barbara Voight, Angelina’s grandmother, was laid to rest dressed in a red bikini with a set of golf clubs at her side. (Her husband, Jon Voight’s father Elmer, was a golf pro.)
• • The only two at Angelina’s wedding to Jonny Lee Miller were her mother and Miller’s best friend, Jude Law.
• • Angelina fell hard for Gary Sinise while filming “George Wallace,” but on advice from her mother did not act on it.
• • Billy Bob’s wedding present to Angelina was a white rat named Fat Harry.
• • But she was not good with pets, all of them — mostly rodents and reptiles — having experienced premature death.
• • Angelina watched a 1999 Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield fight with Mick Jagger, among others. Whenever Angie left the room, Farrah Fawcett was all over Jagger.
• • Angelina’s nickname for Billy Bob was “Lunch,” as in “Lunch Box,” relating to his manhood. (It is also described in the book by someone else as a “knee-knocker.”)
• • Jennifer Aniston, while still married to Brad Pitt, saw herself in the role of Mariane Pearl in “A Mighty Heart.” The role eventually went to Angelina, who earned an Oscar nomination for her efforts.
• • Angelina’s brother James once envisioned a double wedding with him and his fiancee (they’re no longer together) and his sister and Brad Pitt.
