Angelina
by Andrew Morton, HarperCollins, $40
Unauthorised biographies of the famous are huge sellers. They've made Kitty Kelley very rich. Morton (Diana: Her True Story, and others) is arguably the best of these biographers and he has done his customary meticulous job here - although too meticulous for my taste. At
times I felt as if I were spying on very private intimacies.
Angelina Jolie is a terrific actor. She's the darling of Hollywood. The paparazzi and the trash mags follow and photograph her every move. She's been married, very briefly, twice and is now with male hunk Brad Pitt. She has had several dalliances with film and music hotshots.
She has acquired six children.
She's a very respected United Nations goodwill ambassador. In her youth she tried various drugs. She collected knives, and once cut herself and her boyfriend in a bizarre attempt at enhancing lovemaking. She contemplated suicide more than once.
She was promiscuous. She acquired tattoos. And much more.
Her feud with her father - film star Jon Voight - has been well publicised, and Voight deserting his wife just after Angelina was born has been widely blamed for Angelina's psychological problems.
However, this book lays most of the blame on her mother, who tended to ignore the baby, and this persisted.
Later on she was, to put it mildly, an unorthodox parent - even insisting that Angelina, when just 14, live with her young boyfriend in the mother's home. She even gave up the master bedroom for them.
Voight, meanwhile, although hardly blameless, was a loving and devoted father, visiting his children almost daily.
I found about a third of the book interesting, a third gossipy and flippant, and a third voyeuristic.
However, in this sad age of the cult of the celebrity, it will of course sell millions.
