JOLIE GOOD FRIEND
PROCLAIMS LIVERPOOL
Copyright 2003 www.icnetwork.co.uk
[ August 15th 2003 ]
She may
be one of Hollywood's biggest celebrities, but
Angelina Jolie has left a huge impression on Merseyside.
Not only is her best friend and film stuntwoman
a Scouser - Eunice Huthart - but Angelina also
has ties with Alder Hey children's hospital. She
donated £50,000 to the hospital after her adopted
Cambodian son Maddox was treated there. Then 13
months old, Maddox was taken to Alder Hey with
burns after an incident with a kettle.
Maddox
was hurt while his mum was filming Lara Craft
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life - being released
next week - in Snowdonia, North Wales. Angelina
was so delighted with the care he received, she
urged others to donate money to the Rocking Horse
appeal, saying: "This is such a worthwhile cause."
And now we can see Angelina - and Snowdonia -
in all their glory when the second Tomb Raider
film hits the big screen. Not that the star has
had an easy ride since she last played action
star Lara Croft. She's been through a divorce
and possibly a renewed estrangement with her dad
- and she's also faced speculation she had become
a love rival for Kylie's boyfriend, the actor
Olivier Martinez. But, despite her troubles, outspoken
Angelina is probably the happiest she's ever been.
The box-office
success in 2001 of the video game-inspired Lara
Croft: Tomb Raider catapulted Jolie into the media
spotlight, ably assisted by some bizarre behaviour
and a lusty public marriage to the equally odd
Billy Bob Thornton. The marriage is over, and
so reportedly is her brief reconciliation with
Midnight Cowboy father John Voight. But Angelina's
film career is flourishing and the 28-year-old
actress is also finding a whole new focus in life
through motherhood. "I was never completely fulfilled
to just be an actress, being a mother has made
an enormous difference in my life," Angelina enthuses.
"Certainly I've changed a lot in the last few
years. I think I'm finally on track with my life."
With the tattoos, vials of blood as pendants and
public displays of sexuality, not to mention the
knife collection and exhilaration for stunt work,
Angelina - or Angie, as Eunice calls her - made
a name for herself as seductively bizarre.
However
calculated, it didn't do any harm to her growing
reputation as a fearless actress, particularly
following her Oscarwinning performance in Girl
Interrupted. "I've just been honest and I suppose
there are a few things about me that people consider
exceptionally odd. I just don't think they are,"
she maintains. "I don't regret anything and I've
learned things, but I'm a bit wild and a bit nuts.
But I'm also other things and it's nice that I
can be those other things now."
The casting
of Angelina as Hollywood's toughest chick in the
Lara Croft movies has turned her into a sexuallycharged
female version of Indiana Jones and James Bond.
But in the sequel she vows her fighting archaeologist
is less of a "video vixen" the second time around
and more "a real woman."
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