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Angelina Jolie has shared a beautiful story about her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
The Hollywood star, director and humanitarian attended the event on February 6 where she received the Maltin Modern Master Award for her contributions to the film industry. Taking to the stage to accept the honour, Angelina recalled receiving special letters from Marcheline early in her career:
"My mother would write letters to my characters. Dear Gia. Dear Lisa Rowe. Dear Lara Croft. And for the last 16 years, I haven't had those letters," she said with tears in her eyes.
Angelina pondered what her mother would've written to her as Maria Callas, in her latest project, Maria:
"She would probably have told Maria that she loved her because Maria had many things but she never had a mother's love. And I would be absolutely nothing without mine."
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Marcheline passed away in 2007, after being diagnosed with breast and ovarian cancer.
In an op-ed for the New York Times in 2013, Angelina explained that her mother "fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms."
Being a carrier of the BRCA1 gene, Angelina subsequently underwent a double mastectomy and had her ovaries and Fallopian tubes removed as a preventative measure.
“We often speak of ‘Mommy’s mommy’ and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us,” Angelina wrote, referring to her six children with ex-partner Brad Pitt.
“They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a ‘faulty’ gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.”
Angelina regularly uses her platform to urge women to stay on top of their health checks.
(Feature Image Credit: Angelina Jolie photo by Fred Duval/ Shutterstock.com)
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