| By Andrew Morton. |
LOS ANGELES TIMES
For months, Angelina Jolie's face has been looking out from billboards alongside a single question: "Who is Salt?"
The tagline refers to the new thriller, "Salt," about a CIA agent suspected of being a Russian spy. But the genius in the marketing, of course, is that we're asking the same thing about the actress herself.
Enter "Angelina," the unauthorized biography by Andrew Morton, who has penned biographies of Tom Cruise, Monica Lewinsky and Princess Diana.
Morton's "Salt" is a 35-year-old, second-generation Hollywood actor who has spent her entire life in the public eye, careening through a crazy-quilt of rumor, truth and half-truth regarding a fascination with death, heroin use, bisexuality, the serial inking of skin, the bedding of other women's men, the winning of an Academy Award, a U.N. goodwill ambassadorship and the top spot of Forbes' 2009 "Celebrity 100" list ... not to mention having a family of six kids with Brad Pitt.
If there is a celebrity today who merits the spadework of an unauthorized Morton biography, it's Jolie, with a potential audience that includes just about anyone who has gone through a supermarket checkout line, caught a Jolie headline and wondered, "What was she thinking?"
Morton can't say for sure what makes her tick. None of the principal players in the tale -- which begins in 1950 with the birth of her mother, Marcia Lynne Bertrand, and ends earlier this year with her charity work in Haiti -- appear to have cooperated with him, but Morton manages to advance a plausible theory nonetheless.
Morton points out early on that Angelina Jolie Voight, born June 4, 1975, is a Gemini -- complete with all the light/dark, good/bad, impulsive/reflective duality that the astrological sign entails. But, since the world is home to plenty of Geminis who haven't inked Billy Bob Thornton's name below their bikini line on a whim, there's clearly more at work.
If there's anyone to blame here, according to this book, it's the parents, since the bitter relationship between actor Jon Voight and Marcia Lynne (later Marcheline) Bertrand runs as a subplot throughout.
The book also reports, in addition to two marriages -- first to actor Jonny Lee Miller and later to Thornton -- pursuit by a besotted Timothy Hutton, a near-romantic encounter with Gary Sinise and a relationship with model Jenny Shimizu. And then there's the fireball of fame that is Brangelina.
It's at this point that the book seems to move into hyperdrive, with endless rounds of globe-trotting, location shooting, child-acquiring and philanthropic efforts. But the faster it seems to move, the harder it is to put down. Maybe that's because, like salt, we have a craving for explanation, for back story, and Morton's book offers a satisfying dose of both. Source: www.freep.com
