heard that, she started talking about swords. She told me she collected knives and swords. I also had all kinds of them, some dating back to the Civil War. She asked me where she could get a sword rack. Then it turns out we knew somebody in common, Jean-Pierre Hallet.”
Hallet was a legendary figure who had devoted his life to saving the pygmy tribe in the Ituri region of Zaire from physical and cultural extinction. As an anthropologist, he had lived among the pygmies and even introduced a new plant for them to cultivate, helping to save them from starvation after deforestation wiped out most of their traditional food sources. He strongly believed the pygmies to be the most ancient people on earth, likely the ancestors of all humanity, and that they had originated many of the ethical and religious concepts that were later adopted by much of the rest of the world. By 1991, Hallet ran one of the world’s largest shops specializing in Central African artifacts, located on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Angelina bought a Masai sword from him there, and they struck up a friendship. She was fascinated with his stories about the African people. “I’m fairly certain that her affinity with Africa, which is well known today, dates back from her association with Jean-Pierre Hallet. I also knew him well from buying swords from him,” says McCall.
In the end, the photographer never used Angelina for his La Perla shoot because her agent called up and said Angelina wanted to focus on her film career instead. “I was very disappointed,” he recalls. “I thought she would have been big. But as it turns out, the girl I chose instead, Caprice Bourret, went on to a huge modeling career and even became the first Wonderbra model … Maybe Angelina’s people were smart to pull her out. The world would have known her face but would have been deprived of her acting talent.”
This seems to have marked a turning point. Although the La Perla shoot would have been her first national campaign, Angelina had modeled successfully since the age of thirteen and had even traveled to London and France for numerous assignments when she was younger, represented by her mother’s best friend, the model agent Jade Dixon (now known as Jade Clark-Dixon). “Angie was an angel, as was her mother,” Dixon says. “She was my first client and she was very poised, very pretty even then. I eventually steered her to acting when I saw her giant talent. It was obvious from an early age.”
Thus encouraged, at sixteen, with her obsession with death, her need to cut herself, and her first sexual experiences all behind her, Angelina now set her sights on an acting career. Although Jolie now attributes her decision more to her mother’s influence rather than her father’s, Jon Voight in fact played a major part in encouraging her interest.
“Looking back, there was evidence at an early age that she would be an actor,” recalls Jon Voight. “She would take anything and make an event out of it. She was always very busy and creative and dramatic.” When she had play dates with her ten-year-old friends, her father went so far as to set up scenes for them. “I wanted to show the kids things about acting,” he explains. “I’d say, ‘I’m going to give you the lines; how are you going to say them?’”
For her part, Angelina explains that her earliest acting ambitions dated back to when she was a young child. “I remember Jamie pointing the home-video camera at me and saying ‘Come on, Angie, give us a show!’ Neither [Dad] nor Mom ever said, ‘Be quiet! Stop talking.’ I remember [Dad] looking me in the eye and asking, ‘What are you thinking? What are your feelings?’ I don’t know exactly what I wanted then, but I knew I could know. I loved some kind of expression. I wanted so much to try to explain things to somebody. I’m very good at trying to explore different emotions and listening to people and feeling things. That is an
Hallet was a legendary figure who had devoted his life to saving the pygmy tribe in the Ituri region of Zaire from physical and cultural extinction. As an anthropologist, he had lived among the pygmies and even introduced a new plant for them to cultivate, helping to save them from starvation after deforestation wiped out most of their traditional food sources. He strongly believed the pygmies to be the most ancient people on earth, likely the ancestors of all humanity, and that they had originated many of the ethical and religious concepts that were later adopted by much of the rest of the world. By 1991, Hallet ran one of the world’s largest shops specializing in Central African artifacts, located on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Angelina bought a Masai sword from him there, and they struck up a friendship. She was fascinated with his stories about the African people. “I’m fairly certain that her affinity with Africa, which is well known today, dates back from her association with Jean-Pierre Hallet. I also knew him well from buying swords from him,” says McCall.
In the end, the photographer never used Angelina for his La Perla shoot because her agent called up and said Angelina wanted to focus on her film career instead. “I was very disappointed,” he recalls. “I thought she would have been big. But as it turns out, the girl I chose instead, Caprice Bourret, went on to a huge modeling career and even became the first Wonderbra model … Maybe Angelina’s people were smart to pull her out. The world would have known her face but would have been deprived of her acting talent.”
This seems to have marked a turning point. Although the La Perla shoot would have been her first national campaign, Angelina had modeled successfully since the age of thirteen and had even traveled to London and France for numerous assignments when she was younger, represented by her mother’s best friend, the model agent Jade Dixon (now known as Jade Clark-Dixon). “Angie was an angel, as was her mother,” Dixon says. “She was my first client and she was very poised, very pretty even then. I eventually steered her to acting when I saw her giant talent. It was obvious from an early age.”
Thus encouraged, at sixteen, with her obsession with death, her need to cut herself, and her first sexual experiences all behind her, Angelina now set her sights on an acting career. Although Jolie now attributes her decision more to her mother’s influence rather than her father’s, Jon Voight in fact played a major part in encouraging her interest.
“Looking back, there was evidence at an early age that she would be an actor,” recalls Jon Voight. “She would take anything and make an event out of it. She was always very busy and creative and dramatic.” When she had play dates with her ten-year-old friends, her father went so far as to set up scenes for them. “I wanted to show the kids things about acting,” he explains. “I’d say, ‘I’m going to give you the lines; how are you going to say them?’”
For her part, Angelina explains that her earliest acting ambitions dated back to when she was a young child. “I remember Jamie pointing the home-video camera at me and saying ‘Come on, Angie, give us a show!’ Neither [Dad] nor Mom ever said, ‘Be quiet! Stop talking.’ I remember [Dad] looking me in the eye and asking, ‘What are you thinking? What are your feelings?’ I don’t know exactly what I wanted then, but I knew I could know. I loved some kind of expression. I wanted so much to try to explain things to somebody. I’m very good at trying to explore different emotions and listening to people and feeling things. That is an
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