Rare baby pictures show Angelina Jolie with look-alike mother Marcheline Bertrand as intimate details of her childhood are revealed

She is one of the most celebrated beauties of her generation.

And it is clear where Angelina Jolie's astonishing good looks come from.
In never-before-seen pictures, the 38-year-old actress is shown as a baby with her late mother Marcheline Bertrand, who looks hauntingly like an adult Angelina.

The Oscar-winning actress sports a blonde mop of hair in the pictures, which show her with her mother and brother James. 

In one snap, Angelina is seen sitting on her mother's lap as Marcheline — who died of ovarian cancer in 2007 — gazes at the camera with a half smile.

Marcheline wore her brown hair long and straight over her shoulders, much like Angelina's hairstyle of choice nowadays.

Marcheline’s goddaughter Marie Miles released the photos and spoke for the first time about her close bond with Angelina’s family.

Marie also shared cherished letters and Christmas cards, sent by Marcheline to her family in Chicago, detailing her split from Jon Voight as well as touching details of her daughter’s upbringing.

In one particularly poignant passage, Marcheline, then aged 27, wrote: 'Angie is two-and-a-half and she’s sexy and beautiful and funny and very, very cunning.'

'Jamie is now four-and-a-half years old,' wrote Marcheline, referring to her son James. 'He is a source of love in its purest form for me.'

'They sleep back-to-back and hold each other slow dancing. Jamie starts piano lessons in January and Angie is going to be an actress. Yesterday they told me what they were going to give me for Christmas.'

'Jamie is building me “a bed that is a sled so I can sleep on the snow when we go to the mountains,” and Angie said she is giving me "flowers that will never die.” They are so wonderful. Every night I thank God for allowing me to share my life with these two beautiful human beings,' she wrote.

Little Angelina and James are also both seen playing with Jon Voight in the photos, which paint a vivid picture of their early family life. In one photo a baby Angelina is seen with actress Jacqueline Bisset, who was her godmother and a close friend of Marcheline.

Marcheline’s pained words about the breakdown of her marriage after her husband cheated give the first real insight into their divorce — which triggered a difficult relationship between Angelina and her father to this day.

In the 1977 letter Marcheline wrote: 'My God, so much has happened this year! I almost feel like I died and was reborn again, but somehow I know deep in my heart that is how I’m supposed to be feeling.

'Jon and I are still separated, but at this moment in time it’s for the best. I am much stronger now and the children and I are going to survive and be just fine. I’m trying to eliminate all confusion and negativity in my life, accept any changes and grow from them.'

Remarkably forgiving, Marcheline even praises Jon’s acting, writing: '[His] new film Coming Home, which will be released this spring, is wonderful and going to be a huge success for him. His performance is brilliant and he should definitely be nominated.'

Marcheline also writes about studying acting under famed teacher Lee Strasberg and at one point compares herself to a character from Chekov’s Nina in The Seagull.

She wrote: 'The character I enjoyed working on the most this year was Chekov’s Nina in the Seagull.

'Both Nina and Marcheline tried to hold on to something they loved with the last fragment of their strength. Both of us have learned the lesson of letting go and how not to fear the insecure feeling of being suddenly alone.'

Ironically in a 1975 Christmas card Marcheline was positive about her family life and signs it from 'Jon, Marcheline, Jamie Haven and Angelina Jolie Voight'. 

She wrote: 'It’s times like Christmas when I wish we didn’t live so far away from you. I miss you all very much and we hope to be in Chicago the end of the summer. Jon is doing Hamlet in March and a film in April. I of course am very busy with my two children but every moment is a joy and every day a new adventure'.

According to Andrew Morton's 2007 biography of Angelina, Jon had an affair with young student actress Stacey Pickren, who played Ophelia to his Hamlet, during that very production which took place at the University of California in Northridge, where he was artist-in-residence.
 

The strain of the affair is evident in a 1977 Christmas card in which she writes: 'This has been a very difficult year for me, and I am just now beginning to come out of it with the necessary courage and strength to go forward for me and my children.'
She adds: 'I’m not worrying anymore because I have accepted this is all part of God’s plan for me.'

Signed 'Marcheline, Jamie and Angelina', she added a postscript: 'and a special kiss for my sweet and lovely Marie.'

Center, cast member Angelina Jolie with her Mother, left and actress Jacqueline Bisset before the 'Original Sin' premiere held at DGA Theater in Los Angeles, CA., Tues., July 31, 2001. (photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Marcheline filed for divorce from Jon in 1978 after eight years of marriage and it was finalised in 1980. 

Marie’s and Marcheline’s families were inseparable growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois where a teenage Marcheline dated Marie’s elder brother Wayne at High School. 

When Marcheline and her family moved to Hollywood the two families kept in touch via letters and phone calls, as well as the occasional visit.

Speaking from her home in rural Illinois, Marie decided to speak out for the first time to declare how proud she is of Angelina, particularly after she told the world about having her breasts removed after testing positive for the faulty BRCA1 cancer gene.
'The kindness is part of her genetics,' said Marie, referring to Angelina's charity work.
'I just think she was born with a good soul from her mother and is very giving and caring and generous.'

Angelina underwent a preventative double mastectomy in February after discovering she was carrying the defective gene, the same gene that killed her mother. 

Doctors told the mother-of-six that she had an 87 per cent chance of developing breast cancer and a 50 per cent chance of ovarian cancer as a result.
Writing in the New York Times in May, Angelina paid an emotional tribute to Marcheline.

‘My mother fought cancer and died at 56,' she said. 'She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. 
'But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.'