The Brangelina twins are here: Angelina Jolie has given birth to a girl and a boy, and the first photos of them are expected to fetch millions of pounds.
The obstetrician who delivered the twins, Dr Michel Sussmann, said the actress, the babies and Jolie's partner, actor Brad Pitt, "are doing marvellously well".
Dr Sussmann said Jolie gave birth to a boy, Knox Leon,
and a girl, Vivienne Marchelin
e, by Caesarian section on Saturday night in southern France. He said the boy weighed 5lb 4oz and the girl 5lb.
Pitt was with the 33-year-old actress during the operation, said the doctor, who delivered the twins at the seaside Lenval hospital in Nice.
"Everything is going well," said Dr Sussmann. "The mother, the babies, the father are doing marvellously well."
He said the Caesarian was moved forward from its originally planned date "for medical reasons" so that the babies could be born "in the best conditions". He did not give details.
He said Jolie was expected to stay in the hospital for a few more days. The doctor said he believed that the baby girl's middle name was chosen in honour of Jolie's mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in January 2007 after a 72-year battle with cancer.
Jolie and Pitt have four other children: Maddox, six; Pax, four; Zahara, three; and Shiloh, two.
The family has been staying on a large estate, Miraval, in the hamlet of Correns, about 60 miles from Nice and a short helicopter ride from the hospital.
Although the lenses of the world's paparazzi had been trained on it, Jolie managed to slip unobserved into the clinic, reportedly arriving by helicopter on the hospital's rooftop helipad. Pitt was later seen coming and going.
The first photos of the new twins are expected to fetch millions of pounds, but local newspaper Nice Matin said the couple had sold rights for the first images to a US publication, which it did not name, and that the proceeds would go to charity.
The full article contains 350 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
