Jolie, Pitt donate $100,000 to Pearl foundation

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, working together on a film about slain journalist Daniel Pearl, donated $100,000 Tuesday to a foundation established in his memory, Pitt’s spokeswoman said.

The gift to the Daniel Pearl Foundation was presented on what would have been the 43rd birthday of the late Wall Street Journal reporter, who was abducted in Pakistan and killed in 2002 while researching a story in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Jolie and Pitt arrived in India last week to begin production on the Pearl biographical drama “A Mighty Heart,” based on a memoir of the same name by the correspondent’s widow, Mariane Pearl, who Jolie plays in the movie.

Pitt is a producer on the project through his Plan B film company, and British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, whose credits include “Welcome to Sarajevo” and “The Road to Guantanamo,” is directing.

Actor Dan Futterman, whose screenplay for the film “Capote” earned an Oscar nomination, portrays Pearl in the movie.

“On this day our thoughts go out to Danny’s family,” Pitt and Jolie said in a statement issued to People magazine through their representative, Trevor Neilson. Pitt’s personal publicist, Cindy Guagenti, confirmed the donation.

The Daniel Pearl Foundation, which promotes cross-cultural understanding through journalism and music, was observing Pearl’s birthday with a series of music festivals around the world, the Pitt-Jolie statement said.

Jolie, who won an Oscar for her supporting role as a psychiatric patient in “Girl, Interrupted,” gave birth this past summer in Africa to her first biological child, daughter Shiloh Nouvel, with off-screen paramour Pitt.

The two co-starred as married assassins assigned to kill each other in the action comedy “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.