It might be hard to believe, but the Angelina Jolie who now makes headlines for her work on global humanitarian causes is the same Angelina Jolie who, only a dozen years ago, was making headlines for her tattoos, her sexuality and a very intense Oscars-night kiss with her brother. This morning, Jolie may have made the leap to that sparsely-populated realm of stars who are almost above reproach when she announced via an op-ed in the New York Times that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy due to positive tests for a gene linked to breast and ovarian cancers. Hers is a story of a rebellious Goth-friendly actress, known for her sexual escapades and what might be called home-wrecking by fans of Jennifer Aniston, who became an uber-mother with six children—and a celebrity with enough policy smarts to earn a speaking spot at the Council on Foreign Relations. And now it seems she’s poised to become a powerful voice on women’s health. (Click here to read TIME’s cover story on The Angelina Effect: Why Her Mastectomy Raises Key Issues About Genes, Health and Risk) Jolie’s piece was both serious and open, full of personal details about her relationships with her mother—who died of cancer at age 56—and her own children. Along the way, she describes the medical statistics in layman’s terms and touches on the issue of the high cost of medical care. Her goal was to inspire other women to make informed health choices: I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options. And already it’s clear that she’s reaching people: the article quickly shot to the top of the “most e-mailed” list and has been drawing (mostly) sincere and positive responses on blogs and social-media networks, even from those more used to snarkiness about her. … Continue reading Angelina Jolie’s Public-Image Turnaround