Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography (43 page)

This was the very point made by Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, the youngest-ever professor of economics at Harvard University, a UN advisor on poverty, and an all-around policy wonk. That same week in September, he and Angie promoted their joint TV documentary,
The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa,
about their visit to a group of villages in Sauri, western Kenya. Sachs admired Angie’s readiness to get her hands dirty. “She waded right in,” he said, adding, “She is becoming an incredible leader.” Filmed in May 2005, the documentary demonstrated a successful experiment in social engineering, Sachs’s so-called Millennium Project attempting to make the region self-sufficient in food, education, and welfare. As with the inauguration of the Clinton Global Initiative, the release of the documentary was timed to coincide with the 2005 World Summit at the United Nations.

Angie willingly used the example of her daughter to publicize the show, her life lesson demonstrating how a little can lead to a lot. Zahara survived, she told
Good Morning America,
while many others did not, going on to say that Maddox was very protective toward her. “They’re the greatest little people I’ve ever met and they give me so much joy and I want to make a better world for them. I’m just grateful every day that I have the chance.” Certainly the Angie and Zahara show had the desired effect, generating a spike of interest in adopting from Africa, the four agencies specializing in Ethiopia flooded with requests for information following the interview.

While the world focused on Zee, as Angie called her second adopted child, in September she was nursing a very sensitive secret. She was pregnant with Brad’s child, the baby conceived before his divorce became final on October 2. Although that was reason enough to remain discreet, there
were other factors, including family history—her mother miscarried her first child—as well as the convention that baby announcements are made only after the first trimester. Besides, she had a film to make and wanted no special favors.

When their filming commitments permitted, the happy couple spent most of their time together in Alberta, Brad hiring a big log cabin in the woods where they enjoyed the kind of privacy and respect from the locals that had been noticeable by their absence throughout their love affair. “Angie was pregnant. It was a very nice time for us,” recalled Brad. “We stayed out in the woods by a river. So personally, it was a magical time.” Although the paparazzi were kept well away from their backwoods idyll, they did attract unwelcome visitors. One day the couple and their kids were about to enter their cabin after a day’s sightseeing—Maddox had enjoyed the local dinosaur exhibit—when they heard banging, shuffling, and grunting from within. Fearing they were being burgled, Angie and the children retreated to their 4× 4 while Brad, king of the wild frontier, went to investigate. It was a couple of brown bears, attracted by open windows and the scent of food, playing havoc in the kitchen. Brad called the forest rangers, who, after shooing the bears away, lectured the couple on the need to keep the cabin secure.

These Beverly Hillbillies did, though, impress the locals in other ways, Angie described as “friendly and cordial,” as the couple shopped at the local mall, ate in the food court, played on the indoor rides, and did what came naturally—made out in public. One shopper, Rosemary Austen, reported: “Brad and Angelina had a passionate, straight-out-of-the-movies moment when they shared a long kiss. Even though they had the kids in tow, it wasn’t just a peck on the cheek. It was just how you’d imagine that couple kissing.” They went on long motorbike rides together, stopping off at roadside diners and, when time allowed, spending the night in cheap motels—just as Angie did during the early days with Billy Bob.

There was one looming cloud on their horizon. While Angie and Brad had been told that Zahara was an orphan whose mother had died of AIDS, they learned that in fact the birth mother was alive. After their initial fears that she was going to claim her biological daughter, they discovered that the mother seemed to be pleased that her child had found a good
home. Nonetheless, a court had to rule on the legitimacy of their adoption, and in late October Judge Dadnachew Tesfaye declared, much to Angie’s relief, that she had done nothing wrong and that Zahara was her legal child.

It was a relief not just for Brad and Angie, but also for Dr. Jane Aronson; Angie, accompanied by her brother, James, was scheduled to be guest of honor at Dr. Aronson’s first-ever fund-raiser, in aid of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation. At the New York gala, held in October, Angie announced her partnership with Aronson to build a pediatric AIDS center in Ethiopia. “I personally am not willing to wait any longer for action by the United States or any government while children are suffering and dying,” she told the audience.

Now three months pregnant but still keeping the fact a secret, she made a curious admission to
People
magazine: “Most of the night I just thought about how quickly I want to adopt again,” she said. “It’s a very special thing. There’s something about making a choice, waking up and traveling somewhere and finding your family.”

It was as if she felt guilty that the baby she was carrying would take the place of a more deserving case. Yet the baby was planned, her mother suggesting that Angie’s first biological child should be a Gemini. “She’s really into astrology and thought it would be great to have a Gemini like me,” Angie told friends. As ill as she was, Marche even suggested the child’s name, Shiloh, presumably forgetting to mention that the original idea was Jon Voight’s when they spotted a church bus in Georgia saying “Shiloh Baptist” during the making of
Conrack.

As for Angie, she gave the impression that she wanted a biological baby only out of her love for Brad. Although she seemed dismissive, even neglectful, of her pregnancy, it was a huge leap of faith for Angie: a sign that she was willing to defy the Bertrand family curse of cancer and premature death by bringing a potentially genetically damaged child into the world. More than that, she was defying herself. For anorexics, pregnancy is dangerous, difficult, and emotionally challenging, with a high rate of postpartum depression. If anorexia is about control, then pregnancy confronts that mind-set head-on. Even if Angie’s anorexia was greatly improved, she nonetheless would have been reminded of her struggles with body image and feelings of revulsion. For many anorexics, adoption is the recommended path to becoming a mother.

Angie seemed to respond to her pregnancy as she had to other traumas in her life, by disassociating and carrying on as if it weren’t happening. Over Thanksgiving, she and Brad flew to Geneva and then to Kashmir in Pakistan to see for themselves the impact of the October earthquake, which had left at least seventy-three thousand dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. Chartering a helicopter to complete the arduous journey, the couple met with people facing a bleak winter in the mountains without adequate shelter.

They returned to their respective film sets, the wardrobe department on
The Good Shepherd
having to let out Angie’s clothing in order to disguise her pregnancy. In early December, as shooting of
Jesse James
was about to wrap, Brad announced, to much congratulation, that he was about to become a dad—to Maddox and Zahara. While Angie’s pregnancy was literally under wraps, the couple felt secure enough in the health of their unborn child for Brad to forge ahead and make the family whole by adopting. From the sidelines, Angie’s father gave their informal union his own blessing. “I like the look of Brad and I always have done. He’s a good fellow and he’s very gifted.”

Brad, though, was concerned about the mother of his child. She refused to slow down, bouncing around the country, eating badly, and sleeping poorly. In January she paid the price for her frenetic lifestyle, fainting on the set of
The Good Shepherd,
which was then shooting in the Dominican Republic. “I hadn’t eaten for three hours. We were doing a Christmas scene sitting around this piano singing songs when the world just went completely black in front of me and I nearly threw up,” she told writer Jonathan Van Meter. “They had to move me to the side, get me a nurse.” She quietly told her director, Robert De Niro, that she “might” be pregnant, and he went off and got her a banana. One source was reported as saying: “She looks really frail and she’s pale and gaunt. Brad has been trying to persuade her to go on bed rest, but she won’t hear any of it.”

Instead she maintained her hectic pace, flying with Brad from the Dominican Republic to Haiti to visit their friend musician Wyclef Jean and view the self-help projects encouraged by his charity, Yéle Haiti. Although the State Department had issued travel advisories against visiting this unstable nation, Angie was impressed by the pride and resilience of the locals. “You hear so much just about the danger and the fear and
then you come here and you meet just an amazing people. Given just a little chance, and given a little help, this is going to be a great country.”

The media focus, however, was not on the country but on Angie’s countenance, the couple announcing her pregnancy on January 12, 2006. The first pictures of “le bump” were sold to
People
magazine, the funds going directly to Yéle Haiti. More than that, Brad was going to be a dad—officially. On January 19, 2006, he had formally jumped through all the hoops required to adopt Maddox and Zahara. They were now little Jolie-Pitts.

At the end of January, the couple flew to Davos, Switzerland, where Angie was again due to speak at the World Economic Forum. The days of skulking and pretending were over, Brad by her side as Angie met with UN secretary general Kofi Annan and other movers and shakers. They spent the next few weeks in Paris, where they discussed
A Mighty Heart,
the latest project for Plan B Entertainment, with Mariane Pearl, and Berlin, where Brad was working with an architecture firm on a “green” hotel in Dubai.

The attention in Paris was relentless, the family followed everywhere, from the amusement park by the Eiffel Tower to the famous Cirque d’hiver, and even to the playground where Brad took Maddox to test their new remote-controlled model cars. They did manage to escape for a few days, when the two novice pilots—accompanied by their Los Angeles–based instructor—flew the family to the south of France to check out secluded villas to lease.

They were adamant that they did not want the birth of their first child to turn into a circus or a repeat of the Kenyan beach vacation picture saga, where they shaped but did not manage the situation. This time they wanted complete control and would go anywhere in the world to find it. The couple decided that Namibia, the African country where Angie had filmed
Beyond Borders
and where she had first become a mother, would be ideal. It was a conscious choice, Angie argued. “We aren’t completely insane. We looked for places that were not rife with malaria and dengue fever, and Namibia is good for that because it’s so dry.”

Angie had come a long way from her first visit to Africa, when she arrived with no cell phone, watch, or even makeup, her belongings thrown into a cheap duffel bag. This time they had the joint firepower to stage their own private African coup, the family arriving at Walvis Bay Airport by
private jet. Before they set foot on Namibian soil on April 3, 2006, their bodyguard Mickey Brett had established a “no see” zone around the beachfront Burning Shore Beach Lodge, in the hamlet of Langstrand, which they had completely taken over for the duration. Green mesh netting was erected around the hotel to stop long-range photography. The popular oyster bar at the end of the pier nearby was closed down, to prevent any prying eyes from possibly seeing the couple.

Then the Namibian government agreed to enforce a “no fly” zone over the stretch of coast on which the couple’s hotel lay. Journalists and photographers were not allowed into the country without the express permission of the celebrity couple. This edict, signed by Permanent Secretary Loini-Nyanyukweni Katoma, said that the Namibian government intended to support the Hollywood celebrities in their quest for peace and quiet. There was also the little matter of the marketing opportunity their arrival brought, as well as promised donations to the local hospital.

The few enterprising souls who made their cautious way to the remote resort found themselves confronted by Brett and a small army of bodyguards, several of them former South African soldiers during apartheid. There was no goodwill from Angie’s ambassador, Brett telling local photographers: “If I find anyone getting a picture of Jolie, I will fucking smash someone to pieces. I’m not joking. I’ll fucking put someone in the hospital.” During the eight-week-long game of cat and mouse, Brett’s crew cordoned off roads, made nighttime searches of houses, and stopped suspect vehicles. At least one photographer was laced with pepper spray, others beaten up, and Brett himself was charged with assaulting a local restaurant owner. As a final throw of the dice, freelance photographer Steve Butler offered Brett £250,000 for the first picture of the baby. It was so much wishful thinking, Brett taping the conversation with the British paparazzo.

While photographers chasing big celebrity game generated little sympathy, Namibia’s checkered history—it only became independent in 1990 after being a protectorate of South Africa during apartheid—made outraged locals particularly sensitive to their government’s cession of authority to rich outsiders. “Never in my life have I seen two individuals exercise so much power here,” commented Phil ya Nangoloh, executive director of Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights. “They effectively captured the state.” Local farmer Tomas Lorry was equally unimpressed, telling the
New Statesman:
“The restricting of local and international press and this pseudo-royal attitude are the exact opposite of what Namibia needs. People who for years tried to build a democratic society can only shake their heads at this.”

As for the couple at the center of the storm, Angie stayed in the hotel compound, having picnics on the beach with Maddox or, for a time, posing nude for portrait artist Don Bachardy, who flew in from Santa Monica to paint the expectant celebrity. Ironically, it was Bachardy who had sketched her father during his rehearsals for
Hamlet,
the play that ended his marriage. Brad slipped the media cordon to ride a dune buggy or take off into the desert on his motorbike, and hired a plane to practice flying, spending hours on circuits and longer flights over the coast.