Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography

by Andrew Morton

  She soothed herself by splitting off from harsh reality and throwing herself into the world of make-believe, winning a place at New York’s so-called Fame school, the High School of Performing Arts. Hers is a familiar psychological journey. As James Lipton, the host of Inside the Actors Studio, never tires of reminding his audience, most actors come from broken homes. It gave her a brittle outer shell, grit, drive, street smarts, and, most important, talent that balanced her soft, needy center.

  Nancy Aniston was bitter about her marriage breakup, codependent and needy to the point where Jennifer often felt that she was playing mother. When Nancy appeared on a TV show in 1996 and talked volubly about her now famous daughter, Jennifer considered her performance a betrayal too far. Not as far as her mother was concerned; three years later Nancy penned a self-serving memoir, From Mother and Daughter to Friends, that described her daughter as fearful, tremulous, and insecure, even as a baby. Just as Jon Voight and his daughter worked out their problems in the public arena, so, too, did Jennifer and her mother. It is the way of Hollywood.

  Shortly after their lavish Malibu wedding, the world, or at least the world of celebrity-watching, was anxious to know when the golden couple would start a family. In this dreamy scenario, Jennifer seemed to be the perfect future mom, Brad describing her as being all about home, friends, and family. In spite of her difficult family background, she has a close circle of friends, several, like actress Andrea Bendewald, dating back to high school. “We all kind of crowd around her like moths to the flame,” said Brad. “She’s like a magnet; she brings a lot of people together that way. Jen’s the fireplace; she provides the warmth.”

  The baby they lavished most attention on was the mansion designed by Wallace Neff in the 1930s for the character actor Fredric March, which they bought for $13.5 million in 2001. Though the house was move-in perfect, Brad, who has a passion for architecture, threw himself into renovating it, the couple gutting the ten-thousand-square-foot property. How to bring up baby exposed their differences—Brad austere and modernist, choosing hard edges and tough materials, Jennifer opting for comfy, shabby-chic, and homey living, what Brad called “grandma stuff.” While he won the style war, at least she ensured that there was a nursery in their modernist mansion. Shortly before they moved in during the fall of 2003, Jennifer made nervous jokes about baby-proofing the stone floors and the unforgiving furniture he had chosen. As far as he was concerned, any offspring would have to learn to live with hard edges. “I have a different theory: you gotta fall down; you gotta learn,” he said. If that didn’t work, sell and move on. As a friend of the couple’s observed some time later: “When Brad and Jen were in the marriage, having a baby was not his priority—ever. It was an abstract desire for him, whereas for Jen it was much more immediate.” To some extent the house symbolized their marriage, all hard edges and soft center.

  Similarly, their behavior at the premiere of her independent film The Good Girl at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2002 was a cameo in contrasts. While he joined his pals in whooping and hollering at the screen, she clung to him throughout, needy and clearly ill at ease. “She is incredibly insecure, run by abandonment issues, and cannot hold on to a guy because she engulfs them and they run for the hills,” observed a psychologist who has met with Jennifer socially.

  While their house reflected their emotional dynamic, their second offspring, Plan B Entertainment, displayed their joint ambition, the company coming into being when both actors were at turning points in their lives and careers. Jennifer’s ten-year run with Friends was nearing its close, while Brad was nudging forty. The question loomed: “What next?” Through the vehicle of their new baby, they optioned some of the most interesting contemporary literature on the market, including A Mighty Heart by Mariane Pearl, the wrenching memoir of the abduction and subsequent beheading of her husband, Daniel, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, by Islamic extremists in Pakistan while he was investigating the background of the so-called shoe bomber. While Brad subsequently met and discussed the project with Pearl’s widow, taking her to a U2 concert and dinner, it was Jennifer who harbored quiet dreams of playing the role of Mariane, who was pregnant when her husband was kidnapped. “I would love to think I could,” she told Vanity Fair rather diffidently. Certainly the comedic actress who could raise a laugh with an arched eyebrow had her eyes on meatier material.

  For Brad’s fortieth birthday, on December 18, 2003, the meat was provided by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, whom Jennifer had flown in from London along with his wife, Jools, to prepare a celebration dinner for a prince of Hollywood. The birthday boy, who had taken time off from the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith to shoot a couple of final scenes for Troy, his sand and sandals blockbuster, was hardly effusive over his surprise party. Brad had considered buying a Rolls-Royce when he turned forty—then he got into energy conservation. “So I had a quiet dinner with my friends and my wife. It was a nice little dinner at home.” It seems, however, that Brad, who had promised, “There’s a midlife crisis on the way” was no longer into nice. “I’m sure there’s some more rude awakenings yet to come,” he said prophetically. “But I like it like that. I like the unknown. It’s just more vibrant that way. It’s fucking interesting, isn’t it?”

  What could be more vibrant than outgunning, outrunning, and outplaying the delectable Ms. Jolie? No more Mr. Nice Guy indeed. Angie was an intoxicating blend of sex siren, political activist, and yummy mummy. Of course the impish Maddox, with his helicopter necklace and ankle bracelets, was a constant presence, running around the set. He was the bait and the alibi. “They often relaxed on a patio that Pitt set up outside his trailer,” says an actor from the film. “We called it Brad’s grotto. Brad and Angelina were often out there while the little boy was playing.”

  Over the years Brad had done a lot of practice-daddying with his nieces and nephews, inviting the offspring of his brother, Doug, and sister, Julie, for summer vacations at Uncle Brad’s beach house, where Aunt Jen would whip up killer barbecue and homemade salsa. During these sleepovers, he happily let his twin nieces paint his fingernails or climb all over him. So playing with Maddox came naturally. Sealing Jennifer’s fate, Angie remarked: “I know if I ever saw a man be great with my child, that would be it for me.” Not only was he a natural with Maddox, he spoke of his desire to have a large family mixing adopted and biological children. For Angie a light went on. “I ended up falling in love with a man who I think was destined to have children and suddenly one day it felt right and there it was.”

  During their conversations about family, life, and the whole damn thing, Angie artfully conjured up a different kind of perfect woman for the ever-restless Brad: maternal yet still dangerous, sexy yet a goddess. A woman with a sense of the bigger picture, able to pepper her conversation with references to “Bill,” “Kofi,” and “Colin.” (That’s Clinton, Annan, and Powell to mere mortals.) She came across as a strange exotic wanting to save the world’s underclass and yet fill her life with children. And there was the gossip on set about her trailer, which was, as crew later noted, reportedly decked out with handcuffs, sex toys, whips, and the constricting paraphernalia of S&M. The corn-fed boy was toast.

  “Brad was targeted,” observes a psychologist who mingles in the Brad, Angie, and Jennifer circle. “He was bored, sick of Jen’s neediness and tired of propping her up. I am sure that as soon as Jennifer heard the name Angelina Jolie she knew to her core that it was over for her and Brad. Angie’s personality type is tremendously seductive, even for a professional counselor. They flatter, pay unbelievable attention, indulge your every whim. It is all about the dance. Her personality type doesn’t present as crazy but as fabulous. She appears independent, rebellious, has got her shit together. That’s her image. That’s the persona she projected to hook him.”

  As she and Billy Bob had, Angie and Brad talked, connected, meant a lot to each other, but it was hands-off because, of course, he was a married man and she would never touch a married man. In inter
views her mantra was that she was happy to be single, she had a son to raise, and no man would enter her life as a partner unless he deserved to be a father to such an extraordinary child. That she had a “bench” of lovers ready to discreetly bed her in anonymous hotels merely added to the allure. Those close to her insist that it was Brad who did the pursuing, not Angie. “He’s not my type” was her refrain.

  Perhaps the first sign, maybe the beginning of the end, came on January 23, when Brad found himself “too busy” to attend the last taping of Friends, the show that had been Jennifer’s passport not only to international fame but also to a close and affectionate family. “I’m just hoping I get through that night,” she told Diane Sawyer, cheerfully admitting that she cried every time she thought about The End. Knowing how upset Jennifer was and how much the show meant to her, friends and fellow cast members were amazed by Brad’s no-show. “Busy working” was Jennifer’s supportive if rather wan explanation. In fact, he was a thirty-dollar cab ride away on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith while she sniffled and sobbed her way through the final show, which was watched by fifty million fans on May 6. The breakup of her showbiz family brought back unhappy childhood memories. “That was really painful. It was a family, and I don’t do great with families splitting up,” said Aniston. “It was hard to have such a wonderful constant in your life, a place to go every day, and then all of a sudden it’s not there.”

  As for Brad, she later recalled: “He just wasn’t there for me,” not just physically but emotionally. On Valentine’s Day she was at the Berlin premiere of her movie Along Came Polly. He was working. At the Night Before the Oscars party on February 28, Jennifer was with her pals from Friends. He was working. A pattern was developing, which became public in April, almost five months into the protracted Mr. & Mrs. Smith shoot. The electricity and chemistry between Angie and Brad that so pleased director Doug Liman was now tabloid fodder, The Star claiming that the two were an item, which the couple staunchly denied. “Yeah, they have gotten close because they’ve been working together but that’s it,” said Brad’s agent, Cindy Guagenti. Her comment reassured no one. As Suzanne Rozdeba, The Star’s entertainment editor, observed: “Brad and Angelina have kept it this tight little secret, but it brings more attention to it and people are dying to see this film now. They don’t care about the plotline.”

  In what was to become a familiar routine, when the Brad and Angie rumor mill started churning, Angie got going with her good works, flying to Arizona in late April to visit child refugees who arrived alone in the United States without any legal assistance to guide them through the labyrinthine immigration process. She donated $500,000 to UNHCR to establish a National Legal Resource Center to provide lawyers for these lost, lonely, and frightened youngsters.

  Her visit dovetailed nicely with a break in filming, Brad fulfilling his obligations to appear in Ocean’s Twelve and to promote Troy, his first blockbuster movie. As the supportive wife, Jennifer was by his side on the red carpet at the premiere in New York and at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Angie was not far away, traveling to the French resort to promote the cartoon Shark Tale, in which she was the voice for—what else?—a sexy vixen fish. She was also there to help her brother, James, drum up support for Breaking Dawn, in which he had his first starring role, as a psychotic locked away in a mental institution. The idea for the low-budget thriller had come to director Mark Edwin Robinson after he listened to his father conduct interviews with the criminally insane at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, California. James spoke about his father’s reaction to his first leading role: “I was notified that he said my performance was a masterpiece,” he said. “To get that approval gives me a sense of peace. It’s what I’ve always wanted to hear and never thought I would get.” What was remarkable was that Jon Voight had even been able to see the movie; the $540,000 yarn was never distributed or critically reviewed.

  In spite of parental enthusiasm, there was still no move toward a rapprochement, though Angie did make her peace with her second husband that summer, Billy Bob calling her to tell her that he was going to be a father again—his partner, Connie Angland, gave birth to a baby girl, Bella, in September. During their conversation they healed many of the wounds surrounding their abrupt breakup. That he had another child did show that he was, contrary to Angie’s complaint, not averse to having children. More than that, they have remained friends. Billy Bob is always supportive when he speaks of her.

  While Brad and Jennifer went through a marital ordeal by flashbulb at various European premieres of Troy, Angie was playing it cool. Almost too cool. Considering that this was the same girl whose frenzied search for an absent Billy Bob had ended in a mental hospital, it was interesting that she was always somewhere else when the media detectives were hot on the trail of Brad and Angie. While neither would ever admit it, it was almost as if Angie and Brad had worked out some kind of pact during those long, soulful tête-à-têtes on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

  Jennifer had time on her hands now that Friends had ended, joining Brad in Rome during July for the Ocean’s Twelve shoot. The couple was seen canoodling in the city of love, sharing ice cream and sweet talk. There were rumors that they were buying a vacation home on Lake Como near their pal George Clooney and speculation that they might move to London. Even though Brad and Jen were clearly together and publicly affectionate, Angie simply sailed through the speculation, traveling the globe on behalf of the UNHCR, to Spain in June for World Refugee Day and later to the border between Chad and Sudan, where 160,000 refugees had fled the fighting in Darfur. In July she accepted honorary Cambodian citizenship, celebrating this signal honor by flying to her son’s country to meet with tattooist Sompong Kanphai, who engraved a twelve-inch roaring tiger on her back.

  Like her father, however, Angie was in danger of losing sight of what had propelled her to prominence in the first place and given her continued entrée into this club of world leaders—her acting ability. Even though she now liked to downplay her career, a salutary commentary in the influential Empire movie magazine may have given her—or her agent—pause. Critics were already preparing her box-office obituary, saying that since Girl, Interrupted, her movies had hardly set the world alight. “Among industry pundits dire warnings have been issued that if she doesn’t have a major hit pronto the sweet glow of her 2000 Oscar win could be snuffed out and her exalted position as one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood become a thing of the past.” As far as pundits were concerned, she had not lived up to the crushing weight of expectations, her movie releases running the gamut from disappointing to outright disaster. Much, then, rested on the box-office success of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

  When filming restarted in August in Los Angeles and Italy, the studio was keen to emphasize the movie rather than the now-notorious real-life romantic subplot. Though paparazzi snapped pictures of Angie and Brad looking smitten, the publicity machinery tried to squelch the persistent rumors of an affair by saying they were simply acting in character. When filming moved to the Amalfi coast in Italy in October, the two were inseparable. Though they were in separate suites at the Hotel Santa Caterina, they ordered room service and dined together on Angie’s terrace in between playing with Maddox. In Ravello, Angie surprised onlookers with her “utterly flirtatious” behavior, never walking past Brad without touching him or giving him a sultry look. Not surprisingly, alone in the couple’s modernist mausoleum in Hollywood, Jen was said to be miserable, increasingly insecure and scattered.

  Brad had little time—or possibly inclination—to soothe her. No sooner was he back home than he was out the door again. He accepted an invitation from U2 front man Bono to visit Africa and see for himself the poverty and AIDS epidemic sweeping the continent. It was a very high-powered introduction, Brad flying to South Africa with Virgin boss Richard Branson and visiting former South African president Nelson Mandela before moving on to Ethiopia, where he met orphans and AIDS victims, seeing the problems faced by some of the poorest nations on e
arth. However high-minded his intentions may have been, the media concluded that he was interested in these issues only because of his involvement with Angie.

  While Brad was playing soccer in a dirt field with Ethiopian youngsters, Angie was back arm in arm with the other two men in her life, Oliver Stone and Colin Farrell. When Alexander was released in November 2004, the improbable screen mother and son toured talk shows in America and Europe promoting the $155 million blockbuster, which for all their efforts was a box-office flop, earning only $34 million in America. On November 16 Angie attended the Hollywood premiere with her brother, but this time the speculation was about Jolie and Farrell, the endless “Were they having an affair?” rumors quite enough to keep the gossip mill churning. That night James Haven brought along his fiancée, Rachel Anderson, whom he had met at an independent film festival in San Francisco in December 2002. He had asked her to marry him several months before, sealing their love not with a ring but with a glass slipper, as in her favorite Disney movie, Cinderella. On the evening of the premiere, Rachel, who was seated next to Angie, looked radiant in a bright red satin evening gown. Afterward James told her: “You were sitting next to one of the most beautiful women in the world and people only had eyes for you.”

  It was not surprising, then, that the talk at Thanksgiving dinner in Marche’s suite in the Raffles L’Ermitage hotel, where she had moved at Angie’s expense, was all about weddings, gowns, and bridesmaids. Not just the impending nuptials of James and Rachel but also of Angie’s loyal assistant, Holly Goline. After dinner they all settled down to watch a video of the marriage in May of Holly and her husband, Mark, at Jekyll Island, Georgia, where Angie was bridesmaid and Maddox, who spent most of Thanksgiving dinner hiding under the table, the ring bearer. During the evening John Trudell presented Angie with an animal hide engraved and branded with a variety of Indian signs and symbols as a gesture of thanks for supporting and promoting his eponymous film, Trudell, due for release at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005.