Angelina Jolie will play Marcheline Bertrand in biopic to celebrate late mother's life

YEREVAN, MAY 20, ARMENPRESS: The actress Angelina Jolie will play her own mother in a biopic of the late actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died from cancer in 2007. The Oscar-winning actress, who last week revealed she had undergone a voluntary double mastectomy, will star in the film produced by Plan B, the production company set up by devoted partner Brad Pitt, as reported by Armenpress, quoting the British Daily Mail.

Like her daughter, Marcheline devoted herself to humanitarian causes, includinghelping women Afghan refugees and launching the Give Love Give Life organization to help fight gynecological cancers. When Marcheline died from ovarian cancer aged just 56, it came as a huge loss to the talented actress, who has much in common with her mother.

But just a few years later, those similarities took on a more sinister tone when Angelina discovered she had inherited the faulty BRCA1 gene. Doctors told the mother-of-six that she had an 87 per cent chance of developing breast cancer and a 50 per cent chance of ovarian cancer as a result of the gene. She then elected to undergo a double mastectomy, a decision Brad described as 'heroic'.

He said: ‘‘Having witnessed this decision first hand, I find Angie’s choice, as well as so many others like her, absolutely heroic.I thank our medical team for their care and focus.All I want for her is to have a long and healthy life, with myself and our children.This is a happy day for our family”.

Angelina, 37, has announced she also now plansto have a hysterectomy andoophorectomy, where the ovaries are removed to further decrease her chances of developing cancer.

She said: “I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer was higher than my risk of ovarian cancer and the surgery is much more complex.”

The procedure would rule out any further children for her and 49-year-old Brad. They already have three biological children: daughter Shiloh and four-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne. They are also parents to their adopted children Maddox, 11, Pax, nine and eight-year-old Zahara.

Marcheline, who was raised in Illinois by a French-Canadian father, married Midnight Cowboy star Jon Voight when she was a 21-year-old actress. After the births of son James in 1973 and Angelina in 1975, she quit her acting career. However, she and Voight split in 1976 due to his infidelity.

Angelina grew up to be a wild teenager, and her mother was no disciplinarian, permitting the 14-year-old Angelina to bring her boyfriend to live in their home.Marcheline was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999, the same year as Angelina’s Hollywood breakthrough in the film Girl, Interrupted.

Marcheline’s final wishes were said to be that Angelina would marry Brad, and she chose the name Pax, which Angelina gave to the Cambodian boy she adopted six weeks after her mother’s death. Marcheline is also remembered in the middle name of her granddaughter Vivienne.

Writing in the New York Times last week, Angelina paid an emotional tribute to her mother.She wrote:“My mother fought cancer and died at 56.She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms.But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was”.