Angelina Jolie's famous family and their complicated relationship explored
Angelina Jolie remains one of the biggest global stars to come from the entertainment industry, thanks to her sheer star power, showcase of talent, and humanitarian work.
However, her star has effectively been on the rise since birth itself, given the actress, who just turned 48, comes from a family of celebrities.
Born in Los Angeles in 1975, Angelina is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, and is also the sister of fellow actor James Haven, and the niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor.
If that wasn't enough, her godparents are also prominent award-winning actors like herself, those being Jacqueline Bisset and Maximillian Schell.
Her mother made minor film appearances in the early 1980s, including 1982's Lookin' to Get Out, which was co-written by and starred her ex-husband Jon, who she was married to from 1971-1980.
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Their relationship has since been quite fraught, however. Jon left the family when the Changeling star was six months old. Since then, she and brother James were raised primarily by their mother, who inspired them to enter the acting profession.
The siblings were quite close with Marcheline, who managed on a modest income while supporting their show business ambitions, having given up her acting career to raise her children.
Angelina maintained that her relationship with her father, however, was estranged and sporadic, only making minor appearances at press events and bit parts in his movies.
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"We don't really speak that much anymore," she told Vogue in 2002, shortly after they'd temporarily reconnected the year prior when they starred in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider together.
However, from there, it only deteriorated further, with the siblings petitioning to legally remove the surname "Voight," causing the actress to officially go by her middle name of "Jolie," which she'd been using at the time anyway.
Her father, for the most part, kept his distance as well, going so far as to tell Access Hollywood later that year that Angelina was suffering from "serious mental problems."
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However, in 2007, Marcheline passed away at the age of 56 after a battle with ovarian cancer, which the actress opened up about recently, that brought her and her father together.
While they slowly worked on rebuilding their relationship, soon after, they went public with their reconciliation, with the Oscar-winning Jon even attending events with his daughter and grandchildren, who she shares with ex-husband Brad Pitt.
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After her separation and divorce from Brad, she spoke to Vanity Fair in 2017 about reconnecting with her father and having him be a permanent part of the family.
"He's been very good at understanding they needed their grandfather at this time," she said of his relationship with her children. "I had to do a therapy meeting last night and he was just around. He knows kind of the rule – don't make them play with you. Just be a cool grandpa who's creative, and hang out and tell stories and read a book in the library."
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