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William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an Academy award-nominated American actor, film producer, and social activist. He became famous during the mid 1990s after starring in several major Hollywood films. Pitt was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award, both of which were for his role in the 1995 film Twelve Monkeys. Pitt is consistently cited by popular media as one of the most attractive men alive and is regarded as a Hollywood A-lister. His former marriage to actress Jennifer Aniston and current relationship with actress Angelina Jolie have been widely covered in the world media. He is the father of four children with Jolie, one biological, all of whom have also received media coverage. Since his connection with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues, both domestically and internationally. Despite his pretty boy looks and movie star charisma, actor Brad Pitt spent most of his career trying to avoid bloated box office leads, in favor of riskier, lower profile roles. After achieving heartthrob status with revealing performances showing off his “six-pack abs” in “Thelma and Louise” (1991) and “Legends of the Fall” (1994), Pitt actively subverted his hunky blond image by taking on ugly and often crazed characters – most notably in “12 Monkeys” (1995), “Fight Club” (1999) and “Snatch” (2001). While en route to becoming one of the top box office draws of his generation, Pitt generated a substantial amount of tabloid press – particularly for his headline-grabbing romantic entanglements, which provided ample fodder for supermarket stands across the country. His high profile marriage to Jennifer Aniston – once tagged as being the perfect storybook Hollywood romance between the boy and girl next door – crashed and burned in the flames of his alleged affair with proverbial bad girl, Angelina Jolie. The result, however, was a new image of Pitt as multi-racial father and globetrotting activist – thanks to Jolie’s serial adoption of impoverished orphans from Africa and Southeast Asia – a transformation that was underscored by a strong and mature performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s meditative “Babel” (2006), for which the actor earned his second Golden Globe nomination. Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, the son of Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a high school counselor, and William Alvin Pitt, a truck company owner. Along with his brother Doug and sister Julie Neal, he grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where the family moved soon after his birth. Pitt was raised a Baptist. He attended Kickapoo High School, where he was involved in sports, debating, student government, and acting. He attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Born on Dec. 18, 1963 in Shawnee, OK, Pitt was raised in a devout Baptist home headed by William, a trucking company manager, and Jane, a high school counselor. The family moved to Missouri, where Pitt attended high school in Kickapoo. After graduating, he went to the University of Missouri, where he studied journalism and belonged to the Sigma Chi fraternity. But two weeks prior to earning his degree, Pitt suddenly decided to pile into his Datsun with $300 in his pocket and move to Los Angeles, CA to become an actor. Pitt started out in television guest spots, including a recurring role on the CBS primetime soap "Dallas" in 1987 that tended to capitalize on his wiry good looks. He co-starred in "Glory Days" (Fox, 1990), a short-lived drama about post-high school angst. Pitt entered features via the well-traveled low road, appearing in supporting roles in such standard teen fodder as slasher flicks, sex comedies and family-oriented sports dramas. In 1988, Pitt had his first starring role, in The Dark Side of the Sun, where he played a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The movie was shot in Yugoslavia in the summer of '88 with Pitt being paid $1,523 per week for seven weeks. However, with editing nearly complete, war broke out and much of the footage was lost; the film was released years later. Pitt won a part in the TV movie Too Young to Die?, about an abused teenager given the death penalty for murder. Pitt played the part of a drug addict, Billy Canton, who took advantage of a runaway played by Juliette Lewis. In 1991, Pitt starred, along with Vera Martins, as Joe Maloney in Across the Tracks, in which he portrayed a high school runner with a difficult criminal brother played by Ricky Schroder. Pitt attracted broader public attention from a supporting role in Thelma & Louise, where he played a small-time criminal drifter who befriends Thelma (Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis, which showed Pitt topless and wearing a cowboy hat has been referred to as "iconic", often cited as the moment that defined Pitt as a "sex symbol". After Thelma & Louise, Pitt starred alongside Catherine Keener and Nick Cave in the low budget, Tom DiCillo-directed 1991 film Johnny Suede, as an awkward dreamer who aspired to be a big-haired rock star. Pitt had agreed to play the part before Thelma & Louise was released. After appearing in Cool World, Pitt starred in Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It in 1992, for which Pitt learned fly fishing by casting off of Hollywood buildings. In 1993 came Kalifornia, a road movie in which he played a scruffy serial killer alongside Juliette Lewis and X-Files actor David Duchovny. In 1994, Pitt played vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the movie adaptation of Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire. The role of the eighteenth-century vampire required Pitt to endure several hours of make-up being applied every day to achieve the characteristic white skin; Pitt wore a pair of luminous green eyes, vampire fangs, and a shoulder-length hairpiece to complete the appearance. Pitt's co-stars included the eleven-year-old Kirsten Dunst, Tom Cruise, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. He then starred in Legends of the Fall and Se7en. In Se7en, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman as the police detective David Mills who hunts a serial killer played by Kevin Spacey. Pitt was then nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Jeffrey Goines in the 1995 film Twelve Monkeys. In 1997, Pitt starred alongside Harrison Ford as the IRA terrorist Rory Devany in The Devil's Own, the first of several films where Pitt used an Irish accent in his performance. That same year he played the main role of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet. Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded a great deal of trekking and mountain climbing, by rock climbing in California and the Alps with his co-star, English actor David Thewlis. Due to the themes of Tibetan nationalism in the film, the Chinese government banned Pitt and Thewlis from entering China for life. In 1998, Pitt starred as the main character in the film Meet Joe Black, where he played a personification of Death inhabiting the body of a young man in order to learn what it is like to be human. The film gave Pitt another chance to work alongside Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, with whom he had previously worked on Legends of the Fall. In 1999, Pitt starred in Fight Club, an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel. Directed by Se7en's David Fincher, Pitt portrayed the highly complex and colorful character of Tyler Durden. In 2000, Pitt played the role of Mickey, an Irish Gypsy boxer in the gangster movie Snatch, alongside Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Benicio del Toro. The film was a wild caper involving a diamond heist, the Russian and American mafia and the shady underground world, that saw Pitt brought in as a ringer by two failing promoters. The movie saw him moving on from the Northern Irish accent he attempted in The Devil's Own; Pitt created a just-barely-intelligible accent suggesting the Irish Gypsies, referred to as Pikeys in the movie. Pitt continued to train for the role, and honed his boxing skills at Ricky English's gym in Watford. In that rarest of film moments, Pitt gained instant stardom as the hitchhiking hunk – part charmer, part thief – who seduces Geena Davis while brandishing a hairdryer and sporting a cowboy hat in the female buddy movie, "Thelma & Louise" (1991). The following year, he achieved leading man status while sporting a formidable pompadour as the fictitious, aspiring teen idol "Johnny Suede;” he maintained the hairstyle as a soft-hearted yet hard-boiled vet-turned-cartoon cop in "Cool World” – Ralph Bakshi's uneven blend of live-action and animation. Pitt gained some critical esteem playing the troubled younger brother who casts a mean fishing line in Robert Redford's "A River Runs Through It" (1992), but fared less well as a bearded psycho killer in "Kalifornia" (1993). He provided a delightful character turn as the stoner roommate of a struggling actor (Michael Rapaport) who connects his Detroit buddy (Christian Slater) with a Hollywood producer (Saul Rubinek) for a coke deal gone bad in the Quentin Tarantino-scripted "True Romance" (1993). Despite his relative minor degree of celebrity at that time, there was already considerable interest in Pitt’s romantic involvements. Around the release of “True Romance,” he called off a reported engagement to three-year girlfriend, actress Juliette Lewis. Pitt subsequently played his first high profile lead in a Hollywood blockbuster as Louis, the lachrymose narrator of "Interview with the Vampire" (1994). His depressed bloodsucker seemed all the more anemic when paired with a lively Tom Cruise. Pitt's star qualities were better displayed as the wild, middle brother of a colorful Western clan in "Legends of the Fall.” In a change of pace from glamour roles – and to subtly subvert his being dubbed the “Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine – the actor played a scruffy, arrogant policeman tracking a serial killer with Morgan Freeman in "Seven" (1995), before earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as a twitching mental patient/animal rights activist in Terry Gilliam’s manic futuristic dystopia, "12 Monkeys" (1995). After a turn as a prosecutor in Barry Levinson's "Sleepers" (1996), Pitt adopted a passing Belfast accent as an IRA gunman seeking refuge in the home of a New York City cop (Harrison Ford) in "The Devil's Own" (1997). What had been a long a troubled shoot resulted in a muddled and uneven drama. Pitt caused some controversy with a Newsweek interview, in which he made disparaging remarks about the film’s script. With "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997), he adopted an Austrian accent to play an egotistical man who undergoes a spiritual conversion when he is befriended by the youthful Dalai Lama. That film was also the subject of debate when it was revealed that Heinrich Harrer (Pitt) had been a Nazi Party member – the resulting negative publicity and mixed reviews hurting the film's box office. Pitt followed up by reuniting with his "Legends of the Falls" co-star Anthony Hopkins in the languid "Meet Joe Black" (1998) – a loose remake of "Death Takes a Holiday" (1934) – with the younger actor playing the Grim Reaper in human form. Further downplaying his attractive facade, Pitt was cast as Tyler Durden, the straight-shooting but charismatic mastermind behind "Fight Club" (1999), an underground society of disaffected young men who engage in brutal fisticuffs as a means of reclaiming their masculinity. He continued in a similar vein with a turn as an Irish gypsy with a flair for bare knuckles boxing in "Snatch" (2000). In both of these films, Pitt's muscular physique was on display, but in "Fight Club,” he favored a scruffy look; while in "Snatch,” he was covered in tattoos. Off-screen, however, Pitt's celebrity status as a hunky Hollywood icon soared into the stratosphere, after his romantic relationship with the equally beautiful and popular “Friends” (NBC, 1994-2004) TV star Jennifer Aniston culminated in 2001 with a storybook wedding – complete with fireworks – in Malibu, CA. The golden couple's every move quickly became must-have fodder for entertainment-oriented media outlets everywhere. In 2000, Pitt filmed the Cold War thriller Spy Game in which he starred alongside veteran actor Robert Redford, who played the role of his mentor. In 2001, Pitt worked with long-time friend Julia Roberts in the comical road movie The Mexican. At the end of the year, Pitt finished filming Ocean's Eleven with George Clooney and Matt Damon, a remake of the 1960s version which starred Frank Sinatra. Since then, he has starred in numerous films, including Ocean's Twelve and the epic Troy, based on the Iliad, in which he portrayed the legendary hero Achilles. Ironically, during the production of Troy, Pitt injured his Achilles tendon, delaying production for several weeks. In 2005, Pitt starred in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which he and Angelina Jolie played husband and wife assassins. In "The Mexican" (2001), he offered a relaxed, loose turn as a somewhat dim, low-level gangster sent south – over the objections of his long-time girlfriend, played by Julia Roberts – to retrieve the title object, an antique pistol that supposedly carried a curse. He remained busy portraying the protégé of a retiring CIA operative (Robert Redford) in "Spy Game” (2001), before joining George Clooney and an equally beautiful ensemble cast for Steven Soderbergh’s wildly fun remake of "Ocean's Eleven" (2001). That year, Pitt also made two notable TV guest appearances – first, on his wife's sitcom, "Friends," playing a now-thin high school pal of Monica's (Courteney Cox-Arquette) who has long harbored an animosity toward Rachel (Aniston); secondly, in a much discussed slot on MTV's stunt-prank series – and a personal Pitt favorite – "Jackass," where the actor was violently "kidnapped" from L.A.'s Pink's hot dog stand, as several dumbfounded witnesses observed. In 2002, Pitt made brief cameo appearances in Soderbergh's experimental film "Full Frontal" (as himself) and Clooney's directorial debut, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” In 2003, he made the jump to animated features, voicing the title character in the quickly forgotten "Sinbad." After years of downplaying his handsome, heroic looks by appearing in scruffy beards and long hair, Pitt finally took a role that cast him as every bit the Golden Boy, playing legendary Greek hero Achilles in director Wolfgang Petersen's epic, "Troy" (2004) – a role that inspired excitement among his male and female fans alike. The actor also agreed to rejoin Clooney, Soderbergh, et al, for the sequel romp "Ocean's Twelve" (2004), this time playing a Rusty with his own love interest (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Unfortunately, the male camaraderie was wearing thing and the film lacked much of the charm of the first outing. In early 2005, the film work became secondary, when Pitt found himself at the center of an intense media whirlwind when he announced he was splitting from Aniston. One of the speculated reasons for the divorce of the dream couple centered on rumors of an on-set relationship with Angelina Jolie during his next film, the Doug Liman-helmed action-fest "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (2005). Long hours spent choreographing fight scenes and special effects could have done the trick, when onscreen, the actors played a bored married couple surprised to learn that they are each secretly assassins and are ultimately hired to kill each other. Though both actors initially refuted rumors of their affair – and after frequently being photographed together in their private lives, took a less coyer stance later on, with Pitt petitioning to adopt Aniston’s two children – the intense media and public interest in their possible relationship propelled the film to huge box office receipts, thanks in large part to their palpable onscreen chemistry. Their "are they or aren't they?" coupling captivated star watchers and was the most written-about celebrity story of 2005 – prompting the coining of the term "Brangelina." As their relationship gradually emerged in the public eye, Pitt accompanied Jolie on her missions of mercy to third world nations to adopt children. The couple ultimately revealed that they were expecting their own biological child together – daughter, Shiloh Nouvel – while articles trumpeting Aniston’s reportedly ongoing anguish over the loss of Pitt continued to propel the spectacle forward. In fact, the public’s intense interest in the split-turned-love affair heard round the world eventually came down to camps – with Team Aniston and Team Jolie T-shirts being sold off the shelves that summer. After a noted absence from the big screen – but not the tabloid pages, which seemed to concoct a new and ridiculous story about Brangelina every week – Pitt returned with a strong and rather mature performance in “Babel” (2006), a dense and heartbreaking look at confusion, fear and the depths of love. Set on different continents – Asia, Africa and North America – “Babel” told three separate stories brought together by a single random act of violence. Pitt played an American tourist traveling to Morocco, when a stray bullet from a rifle crashes through a bus window and seriously wounds his wife (Cate Blachett), touching off a series of events – including the couple’s Mexican housekeeper (Adriana Barraza) trying to cross the border, a neglected Japanese girl (Rinko Kikuchi) scouring Japan for love in all the wrong places, and two Moroccan boys (Said Tarchani and Boubker Ait El Caid) dealing with their responsibility for the shooting. Meanwhile, Papa Pitt – by now, the father of three adopted children and one biological w/ Jolie – reunited with Soderbergh, Clooney, Damon and the rest one more time for “Oceans 13” (2007), the third installment to the hipster caper series that saw the gang exacting revenge on a ruthless Las Vegas casino owner (Al Pacino) after becoming the victims of a double-cross. Hijinks and hilarity ensue. In March 2006, it was announced that Paramount had purchased the rights to The Sparrow for Pitt's production company, Plan B, and that Pitt would be playing the lead role of Sandoz. In June 2006 it was announced that Paramount and Plan B will be working on a new zombie film called World War Z, based on the book of the same name by Max Brooks. Pitt made his return to Hollywood in late 2006 with Alejandro González Iñárritu's critically acclaimed Babel, starring alongside Cate Blanchett. The movie garnered a total of seven Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, one of which was a Golden Globe nomination for Pitt as Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. The movie has since become Pitt's highest grossing drama. That same year, he also produced the eventual Best Picture winner, The Departed. In 2005 he produced and starred in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, directed by Andrew Dominik, but the film was not released until late 2007. Although both Pitt and the film gained much critical success (the film appeared on many 'Top 10' lists of 2007), it performed poorly at the box office. Pitt has appeared in television commercials designed for the Asian market, advertising such diverse products as Edwin Jeans, the Toyota Altis, and Japanese canned coffee. He also appeared in a Heineken commercial which aired during the 2005 Super Bowl; it was directed by David Fincher, who directed Pitt in the feature films Se7en and Fight Club. Together with Jennifer Aniston and Paramount Pictures head Brad Grey, Pitt founded the production company Plan B. Aniston is no longer a partner in the company, although she is still attached to many projects that were set up before her divorce from Pitt. The company produced the blockbuster Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp, as well as The Departed and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Pitt made a guest appearance in an eighth-season episode of Friends, as a man who has a grudge against Aniston's character Rachel Green, lent his voice on an episode of King of the Hill, where he played Boomhauer's brother, Patch Boomhauer, and on an episode of MTV's Jackass, in which he took part in a staged abduction of himself. In a later Jackass episode, he and several cast members ran wild through the streets of Los Angeles in gorilla suits. Pitt has been an active supporter of research into diseases such as AIDS. He is the narrator of the acclaimed Public Television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current important global health issues. Pitt is behind Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur, along with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub. Pitt is also a knowledgeable fan of architecture, particularly that of Frank Lloyd Wright, and has helped the National Trust for Historic Preservation raise money. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Pitt dated several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens (Head Of The Class), Jill Schoelen (Cutting Class), Juliette Lewis (ten years his junior, Juliette was sixteen years old when they started dating) (Too Young to Die? and Kalifornia), and Gwyneth Paltrow (Se7en), with whom he had a much-publicized engagement. Pitt also dated actresses Sinitta, Thandie Newton, and Jitka Pohlodek. Pitt met Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her during an enclosed wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. The couple ensured that the ceremony would be a private affair by hiring hundreds of guards to block any attempts of invasion by the paparazzi; just one wedding picture was released to the media. Not long after the wedding, Pitt sued Damiani International, the company which had made the wedding ring he gave Aniston, for selling replica "Brad and Jennifer" rings. According to Pitt, the ring was his design and was to be exclusive. Under the settlement reached in January 2002, Pitt would design jewelry for Damiani that Aniston would model in ads, and the company would stop selling the copies. Though their marriage was for years considered the rare Hollywood success, rumors of marital problems began circulating, and the Pitts announced their separation on January 7, 2005. As Pitt's marriage to Aniston drew to a close, he and actress Angelina Jolie were involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal in which Jolie was often painted as the "other woman", largely due to their chemistry during the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. While Jolie and Pitt both denied any claims of adultery, speculations continued to mount throughout 2004 and early 2005. In an interview with Ann Curry in June 2005, Jolie explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife." In early 2005, the concept of a "troubled marriage" - and arguably his own - inspired Pitt to cooperate with photographer Steven Klein for a photoshoot entitled "Domestic Bliss" for W magazine. The spread showed Pitt and Jolie as a 1963 married couple with children. Pitt expressed the desire to tell a darker, truer tale, one that explored the "unidentifiable malaise" that often haunts a seemingly happy couple. "You don't know what's wrong", he remarked, "because the marriage is everything you signed up for." For her part, Aniston later cited the shoot as evidence that Pitt has "a sensitivity chip that's missing.", Aniston filed for divorce on March 25; the divorce was finalized on October 2, 2005. One month after Aniston filed for divorce, in April 2005, a set of paparazzi photos emerged that seemed to confirm the rumors of a relationship between Pitt and actress Angelina Jolie. The photos, which were reportedly sold for $500,000, showed Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer, the pair were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina". Two months later, the highly-anticipated July 2005 issue of W magazine hit newsstands, featuring Pitt and Jolie posed as a couple. In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Ethiopia, where Jolie adopted her second child, a six-month-old girl named Zahara; later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt the child together. In December 2005, it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children as his own; per the legal requirements, classified advertisements in the Los Angeles paper Daily Commerce announced the name change request. On January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request, and the children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt". During a charity trip to Haiti with Wyclef Jean, rumors began to circulate that Jolie was pregnant. On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to People magazine that she was pregnant with Pitt's child. On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Public interest in the child was immense, as evidenced by an August 2006 survey, in which 41 percent of participating 18-to-24-year-old American adults correctly identified that the couple had named their baby Shiloh. Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt: Born on August 5, 2001 as Rath Vibol in Cambodia; adopted at seven months old on March 10, 2002. Prior to the adoption, he lived in an orphanage in Cambodia's second-largest city, Battambang. Jolie's adoption of Maddox, which took place during her former marriage to actor Billy Bob Thornton, is often credited with sparking the celebrity adoption trend of the 2000s. Maddox has gained considerable celebrity in his own right; he appears regularly in the tabloid media and was named the "cutest celebrity kid" in 2006. Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt : Born on November 29, 2003 as Pham Quang Sang in Vietnam; adopted at three years old on March 16, 2007. On March 2, 2007, Vu Duc Long, the head of Vietnam's international adoption department, confirmed that Jolie had filed papers to adopt a child from Vietnam. Two weeks later, on March 16, Jolie traveled to Vietnam with Maddox to pick up her new son. Pax had lived in the Tam Binh orphanage since he was found abandoned outside a Ho Chi Minh City hospital shortly after his birth. Since the orphanage does not allow unmarried couples to adopt, Jolie adopted Pax as a single parent, with Pitt later adopting his son domestically. Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt: Born on January 8, 2005 as Tena Adam or Yemsrach in Ethiopia; adopted at 6 months old on July 6, 2005. Jolie adopted her from a Wide Horizons for Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was hospitalized for salmonella-intestinal infection, as well as dehydration and malnutrition. Jolie stated that "she was six months and not nine pounds. Her skin, you could squeeze it, it stuck together". Although it was initially reported in the media that Zahara had been orphaned by AIDS, in 2007 media outlets stated that Zahara's biological mother, Mentewabe Dawit, was still alive and had abandoned her shortly after giving birth. Dawit denied reports claiming she wanted the child back, instead saying she thought Zahara was a "very fortunate human being to be adopted by a world famous lady." Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt: Born on May 27, 2006 at Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia; Pitt and Jolie's only biological child. Shiloh was born by a scheduled cesarean section due to breech presentation; Jolie was assisted during the birth by the couple's Los Angeles obstetrician and local staff. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would have a Namibian passport. The couple decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images themselves, rather than allowing paparazzi to take these extremely valuable snapshots. People magazine paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide - the most expensive celebrity image of all time. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Pitt and Jolie. On July 26, 2006, Madame Tussauds of New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; she was the first infant to be recreated in wax by Madame Tussauds. On February 23, 2008, People magazine revealed a picture of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt at the Film Independent's Spirit Awards. Jolie was very obviously pregnant, and a companion article states that a friend of the couple says Jolie and Pitt are "thrilled to be adding to their brood." The family divides its time between Los Angeles, California and New Orleans, Louisiana. In an interview with the Times-Picayune, while filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Pitt said: “ I can't describe why we're allowed to live a more normal life (in New Orleans). Living in the French Quarter is a thrill for us. We have some semblance of real family life. People have been very, very gracious with us. If we're on the front deck, people go by and say, 'Hi.' Then they go on their way, very friendly.” In December 2006, Pitt gathered a group of housing professionals together in the Hurricane Katrina-stricken New Orleans to begin planning a project that Pitt calls Make It Right, with the goal of financing and constructing 150 new houses in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. The houses are being designed with an emphasis on sustainability and affordability, with the hope that the project can and will be replicated throughout the city. Thirteen architectural firms are involved in the project, many of which are donating their services. Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed to matching $5 million in donations. In an October 7, 2007 interview, Pitt told PARADE that he is no longer a fundamentalist Christian. In this interview, Pitt said: “ I always had a lot of questions about the world, even in kindergarten. A big question to me was fairness. If I'd grown up in some other religion, would I get the same shot at Heaven as a Christian has? My mom would come into my room and talk to me. I was very fortunate to have that dialogue with her, but in high school I started to realize that I felt differently from others. In 1995, Pitt was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history. Pitt has also twice been named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Pitt was also prominently featured in the December 2006 Art Issue of Vanity Fair. He appears on the cover in nothing but a pair of white boxers. The cover promotes an article on the Robert Wilson video portraits, a production of LAB HD that includes numerous celebrities and noted personalities. This cover has drawn criticism from Pitt because, although he had signed a release for the image, he did not expect it to end up on the cover of Vanity Fair more than a year later. The video portrait, which represents Pitt's first effort in avant-garde cinema, was exhibited at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2007, Pitt was listed among artists and entertainers as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World. He was credited, along with his best friend Tiago Miranda Paulo, with using "his star power to get people to look at places and stories that cameras don't usually catch." |
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