Jolie, Pitt welcome twins

Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins - a boy and a girl - Saturday evening, and the babies and their parents, including Jolie's partner, Brad Pitt, are

? Brad Pitt was emotional but calm, Angelina Jolie laughed and chatted. The world’s most famous celebrity couple were joined in emotion during the birth of their twins – a boy and a girl – and all “are doing marvelously well,” the doctor who delivered the babies in a seaside hospital on the French Riviera said Sunday.

The newborns – Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, born one minute apart Saturday evening – are the ultimate million-dollar babies, with experts estimating their first photos will fetch a fortune.

“In the celebrity world, it seems to be the double second coming,” said Darryn Lyons, owner of Big Pictures, a photo agency in London.

For now, mother, father and newborns are resting out of the public eye on the fifth floor of the Lenval hospital, behind blue mirrored windows that provide sweeping views of Nice’s sun-drenched beaches, but specially treated to deflect the prying lenses of paparazzi.

Jolie’s obstetrician, Dr. Michel Sussmann, said the 44-year-old Pitt was at Jolie’s side during the delivery, looking on as the doctor performed a Caesarean section to deliver Knox, weighing in at slightly over 5 pounds, and Vivienne, who weighed 5 pounds.

“He was my assistant,” Sussmann joked.

“He was very happy. : The emotion was very strong for him,” Sussmann told reporters on the hospital steps. “I felt the emotion of both the mother and the father. Angelina Jolie was speaking, was laughing with her husband. They were happy.”

“The mother, the babies, the father are doing marvelously well,” he said.

Sussmann said the Caesarean was moved forward from its originally planned date “for medical reasons” so the babies could be born “in the best conditions.” The doctor did not elaborate.

He said Jolie, 33, is expected to stay in the hospital for a few more days and that she now needs rest. The four other Jolie-Pitt children – Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3; and Shiloh, 2 – have not yet seen their new sister and brother, he said.

The doctor said he believed the baby girl’s middle name was chosen in honor of Jolie’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007 after a 7 1/2-year battle with cancer.

News of the births attracted a small crowd of fans hoping to snap a photo of Pitt – or any of their celebrity friends stopping by to pay a visit. None appeared, but the mayor of Nice delivered the twin’s birth certificates, which he later displayed to reporters, with the family’s approval, showing Pitt’s scrawling WBP, for his full name William Brad Pitt.

“The father is having one of the happiest moments of his life, like any father, especially when they have the joy of having two children from such a wonderful wife as Angelina Jolie,” Mayor Christian Estrosi said after the brief official visit, which spared Pitt the gauntlet of paparazzi that would accompany any trip to City Hall.