In our pages: Angelina Jolie, unauthorized

British tabloid journalist Andrew Morton, who wrote a controversial unauthorized biography of Princess Diana, has turned his attention to another high-profile woman, Angelina Jolie. His book is the aptly titled "Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography." And "unauthorized" is the key word, our reviewer Adam Tschorn writes, because "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. Among his most relied-upon, on-the-record sources seem to be a former babysitter of the Voight children and Angelina's alleged one-time drug dealer."

Tschorn's review continues:

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. Her father left Bertrand for another woman when Angelina was 2, and her mother/manager is portrayed as vacillating between being a laissez-faire hippie mother and a pushy sort of stage mom who, according to Morton, tried — among other things — to push her daughter into a relationship with Mick Jagger.

The book also reports, in addition to two marriages — first to actor Jonny Lee Miller and later to [Billy Bob] Thornton (who happened to be engaged to Laura Dern at the time) — Jolie's 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" — which Morton suggests was at least sparked, if not fully kindled, while Pitt was married to "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston. (Morton, who knows his way around a nuance, implies with as much certainty as he can muster that they were fully engulfed early on.)

Tschorn finds the book propulsive and readable. Like salt -- the substance, not the new Jolie film -- "Angelina," he writes, fulfills a craving.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Angelina Jolie, promoting the film "Salt," arrives in Japan in July with some of her children. Credit: Yoshikazu Tsuino / AFP/Getty Images

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Comments

[miller]

So what? we all go through rough time in our life. We handle things the way we perceived them. What is important is, we came out good and won the battle . Obviously Angie won it with flying colors most people would have wasted their lives or living a non sense life.

[Ined]

I will never read/buy/support a book/magazine/tabloid/author who does not name his sources. I believe this book will be filled with fact, fiction, but mostly speculation. I believe what I see, and what I see is that they are together and seem happy. If one day they separate then fine (it's still none of our business), if they don't well that's great.