Last week, the couple visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh city in order to collect Pax Thien, a three-year-old Vietnamese boy who becomes the fourth child in their happy brood. He joins son Maddox, adopted from Cambodia in 2002, daughter Zahara (Ethiopia, 2005), and another girl, Shiloh, who arrived in May last year, after Jolie fell pregnant by her boyfriend Brad Pitt.

Jolie was inspired to adopt overseas after visiting Cambodian slums during the filming of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2000.

Soon-Yi Previn and Woody Allen

Woody Allen's track record on adoption is colourful, to say the least. In 1992, he began a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, 22, the Korean daughter of his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow. The couple met in the 1980s when Previn was a teenager and fortysomething Allen was in loco parentis. Previn was one of six children (three adoptive, three biological) from previous relationships that Farrow brought to the director's New York home. Allen and Previn married in 1997 and have adopted two daughters, Bechet and Manzie.

Farrow remains one of Hollywood's most enthusiastic proponents of adoption. She has since added a further five children to her brood, bringing her career total to 14 - of which 10 were adopted.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie

IT all went pear-shaped in October, when the Queen of Pop swept into Malawi to "rescue" 13-month-old David Banda, who was living in an orphanage after his mother died from Aids.

First, the boy's father, Yohane, a peasant farmer, claimed not to have understood what he had agreed to do when he agreed to the adoption. Next, it was claimed Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie's celebrity status had allowed them to sidestep local adoption laws.

Finally, human rights groups were critical, claiming super-rich showbiz personalities should not be allowed to "cherry-pick" children from the Third World.

Only when Madge faced the Newsnight cameras did the "Madonna and child" hoo-hah die down. Today, baby David lives in London with brother, Rocco, and sister Lourdes, Madonna's daughter from a previous relationship.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman

Tom and Nicole married in 1990, but never produced any offspring of their own. But they did adopt two children: Isabella and Connor. Both came from impoverished backgrounds on America's east coast, and had been put up for adoption by parents who couldn't afford to raise them. Isabella arrived in 1993; Connor came two years later.

Although their divorce in 2001 was keenly contested, the couple have amicably shared the kids ever since.