Angelina Jolie walks red carpet after double mastectomy

Angelina Jolie made her first public appearance on Sunday since announcing her double mastectomy, joining fiance Brad Pitt on the red carpet in London where she welcomed the debate on women’s health that the surgery had sparked.

The Oscar-winning actress has stayed out of the spotlight since announcing her operation in a New York Times column last month, saying the decision was made after finding she carried a gene giving her an 87-per-cent chance of getting breast cancer.

The 37-year-old mother of six, praised for her courage in publicly announcing her surgery, is now reported to be planning another operation to remove her ovaries as the BRCA1 gene also gives her a 50-per-cent chance of ovarian cancer.

She said she felt wonderful after the operation.

“I feel great. I feel wonderful. And I’m very, very grateful for all the support. It has meant a lot to me,” she said.

On the red carpet for the world premiere of Pitt’s latest movie, zombie blockbuster World War Z, Jolie praised her partner as being “a wonderful man and a wonderful father.”

“I have been very happy just to see the discussion about women’s health expanded. That means the world to me,” she said. “And after losing my mom to these issues I am very grateful for it and I have been very moved by the kind support from people — really very grateful for it.”

Jolie’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died from ovarian cancer in 2007 at the age of 56 and her aunt, 61-year-old Debbie Martin, died last week as a result of breast cancer.

Jolie missed her aunt’s funeral to accompany Pitt to London for the premiere of World War Z, an adaptation of Max Brooks’ 2006 apocalyptic novel.

In World War Z, Pitt plays United Nations representative Gerry Lane who is enlisted to help stop a zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to destroy mankind.

Pitt said he is proud of the film and also of Jolie for her decision to have a mastectomy for the sake of their family and to share that experience.

“She always knew that this day was coming and it was to pick her time and remove this spectre from us,” Pitt, 49, told reporters.

“I’m super proud of her. She’s a bad ass.”

Asked how important it was to have her on the red carpet with him, Pitt said: “It’s just more fun to do these things with each other. More fun when she’s around and same for her.”

World War Z marks Pitt’s first foray as the star and producer of his own potential franchise.

Pitt said his own children’s reaction to the book sparked the project which ultimately was about survival and family.

“The boys love a zombie,” he said. “So that got us into this book. But with this book we found it was genre-bending, it approaches it more as an international pandemic and about what happens if you wake up one morning and everything that’s important to us is rendered useless and it’s just about survival and keeping your family.”

Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment bought the screen rights to the novel about six years ago and it is one of the big box office releases this summer, but it is under pressure to perform before even opening.

It was due to be released late last year but suffered setbacks amid reports that the budget had ballooned above US$200 million and Pitt clashed with director Marc Forster.