Angelina Jolie's mother, Marchline Bertrand, gave up career to raise her children Angelina Jolie with her mother Marcheline Bertrand, at a film premiere in Los Angeles on July 31, 2001. Bertrand died of ovarian cancer. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian) Source: AP ANGELINA Jolie has nothing but admiration and respect for her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007 following a near decade-long battle with ovarian cancer. Bertrand, who was married to actor Jon Voight in the 70s and had two children, Jolie and her brother, James Haven, was a Hollywood actress and producer. Jolie today wrote how losing her mother to cancer was a factor in her decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. Jolie wrote that she made the decision to have both of her healthy breasts removed after discovering that she had the BRCA1 cancer gene. Bertrand studied with acting coach Lee Strasberg and had roles in the television series Ironside and films Lookin' to Get Out and The Man Who Loved Women. US actress Angelina Jolie has revealed that she has undergone a double mastectomy as a preventative measure against breast cancer. She then turned her career to producing, making films including the documentary Trudell about the life of musician and activist John Trudell - who she later had a relationship with. Bertrand raised her two children as a single mother after filing for divorce from Voight in 1978. "My mother was a full-time mother," Jolie told 60 Minutes in 2011. She didn't have much of her own career, her own life, her own experiences. Everything was for her children. I will never be as good a mother as she was. She was just grace incarnate. She was the most generous, loving - she's better than me. Bertrand was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999 and fought the disease for seven-and-a-half years before her death on January 27, 2007, aged 56. At the time of her death Jolie told PEOPLE: "There are no words to express what an amazing woman and mother she was. She was our best friend.