AFP-Getty Images file
Marcheline Bertrand and Angelina Jolie in 2001.
By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor
Angelina Jolie's revelation that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy came as surprise to much of the world Tuesday, but her timing of the announcement -- just two days after Mother's Day -- seems particularly apt: It was her late mother Marcia Lynne "Marcheline" Bertrand's experience with cancer that spurred Jolie's decision.
"My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56," Jolie said in her New York Times op-ed column on Tuesday. "We often speak of 'Mommy's mommy,' and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us."
The illness was ovarian cancer, which took Marcheline Bertrand's life in 2007, but the person behind Jolie's decision was "a very, very soft woman," as the actress told the New York Times in 2008,?who lived largely in the shadow of her famous husband (and Jolie's father) Jon Voight.? Jolie was estranged from Voight for most of her life, and clearly carried her mother's influence with her wherever she went: During the filming of 2008's "Changeling," Jolie kept photos of her mother in the purses her character carried in the movie, as she told the Times.?
Bertrand too though, was an actress in a few films, including "Lookin' to Get Out," which was co-written and starred her former husband (she and Voight were married from 1971-80 and had two children, Jolie and James Haven). She left acting not long after Haven was born, and never returned.
"I will never be as good a mother as she was,"?Jolie said on 60 Minutes in 2011. "I will try my best, but?I don?t think?I could ever be. She was grace incarnate,?the most generous, loving -- ?she?s better than me."
In addition to raising her two kids, she formed several organizations and companies, and ran her own production house, Woods Road Productions. She executive produced the 2005 documentary "Trudell," about her partner, Native American poet and activist John Trudell. She claimed to have Native American ancestry herself, and she and Trudell founded the All Tribes Foundation to benefit Native Americans. Clearly, her humanitarian leanings clearly transferred to her daughter, who was appointed?as a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2012.
Bertrand was reportedly diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the late 1990s and founded the Give Love Give Life organization with Trudell to raise awareness of ovarian and other gynecological cancers through music. After a long battle with her cancer, she died on Jan 27, 2007 at age 56.
"There are no words to express what an amazing woman and mother she was,"?Jolie and Haven told People Magazine at the time. "She was our best friend."
A best friend who sadly fell victim to a family curse: "There is no longevity on my mother's side of the family,"?Jolie told Esquire in 2010. "My grandmother also died young, so my mother always thought it could happen to her. But she lived to see her grandchildren, lived to see both me and my brother in a nice place. She was a real mother that way. She waited till everyone was okay. Then she closed her eyes."
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