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Angelina Jolie's dad: She's an inspiration

Los Angeles - Angelina Jolie's father thinks she is an "inspiration".

Jon Voight is very proud of the 37-year-old actress for speaking out about her decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy to dramatically decrease her risk of developing breast cancer, after she was identified as carrying the BRCA1 cancer gene, and believes she will make a big difference by going public about her surgery.

The 74-year-old Lone Star actor told E! News: "My love and admiration for her can never be measured in words. I think she is an inspiration to many people who are faced with the same situation.

"I think she is quite magnificent in the way she is handling this. She is taking care of things. She does careful diligence and she has this courage to gather information and make decisions from it. It has been very successful and I heard she was able to travel soon afterwards."

'She will inspire many people'

"She is an amazing person. She is also an extraordinary mother. She includes them [her children], when she can without scaring them, and makes it understandable to them.

"She will make a difference in so many people's lives. She will inspire many people."

Angelina decided to be tested for the gene because she lost her 56-year-old mother Marcheline Bertrand to ovarian cancer in 2007.

In an article penned for the New York Times, she wrote: "My doctors estimated that I had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman."

Big motivation

"Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.

"On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work."

Angelina now only has a 5% chance of developing breast cancer and she admitted her and fiancé Brad Pitt's six kids - Maddox, 11, Pax, nine, Zahara, eight, Shiloh, six, and four-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne - were a big motivation for her to have the surgery because she wants to see them all grow up.

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