Aspiring actress Angelina Jolie was 15 years old when she had a professional photo shoot with Harry Langdon in Los Angeles. She was relatively unknown at the time, even though her father was actor Jon Voight.
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For decades, Langdon has been photographing people in the entertainment industry. He's shot celebrities such as George Clooney, Halle Berry and Sophia Loren. "When we get a call to photograph a relative of a well-known actor -- in this case, Jon Voight -- we sort of figure: 'Well, OK, here we go again. Let's hope that she knows what she's doing, and we'll do our best.' ... It turned out to be a nice surprise," Langdon said.
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Langdon remembers being struck by Jolie's confidence during the shoot. "Someway or another, she just sort of knew what to do," he said. "I don't know if it was a mental telepathy or what. I can usually see in my imagination a pose that would work, and -- boom -- she kept going into these poses."
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The shoot took place on January 11, 1991, and lasted about two hours, Langdon said. He didn't charge anything. "We used to use the term a 'test session,' " he said. "Kind of like a trial, and hopefully one day the pictures will be valuable."
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Langdon recalled there being little conversation on set, which he said isn't uncommon for young actors. "Sometimes on photo sessions I get into in-depth conversations about their skiing or their horseback riding or something like that. With (Jolie), it was all business."
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Langdon said he didn't find out Jolie's age until after the shoot. "I knew nothing about her background," he said. "I knew nothing about her living conditions or boyfriends. I knew nothing about her stage experience."
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Jolie's many outfits included a swimsuit. "She started posing pretty sexy," Langdon said. "But it wasn't so much her poses. She emitted a real sensuality. I just kept shooting from different angles."
Harry Langdon/Getty Images
Jolie's film career would take off a couple years after the shoot. In 2000, she won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in "Girl, Interrupted."
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Langdon said the proofs were delivered to Voight and he never heard from them again.
Harry Langdon/Getty Images
"When it comes to acting, for a still camera, you have to kind of express a great deal of your body language and your sensuality the best you can," Langdon said. "Because there's not a moving camera and there's no dialogue, you have to say it all with body language -- which she did really, really well."
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"I never know nowadays when I photograph an aspiring actor where they're going to go," Langdon said. "The more and more mature I get in my career, I've realized that every session I do could be a really important session." See more photos from Jolie's life and career