Halle Berry was
born on
August 14, 1968 in
Cleveland,
Ohio to African
American father
Jerome Berry, a former hospital attendant, and Caucasian mother
Judith Berry, a retired psychiatric nurse.
Halle also has an older sister named
Heidi. Halle's parents divorced when
she was 4 years old.
She was then raised by her mom. An active teenager, Halle enjoyed being high school cheerleader while also juggling duties in the
honor society, editor of the school paper, and
class president. Her senior year she was also crowned prom
queen. Halle first came into the
spotlight at 17 years old when she won the Miss
Teen All-American Pageant, representing the
state of Ohio in 1985 and a year later in 1986 when she was the first runner-up in the Miss
USA Pageant. After participating in the pageant, Halle became a model. It would eventually
lead to her first weekly TV series, 1989's
"Living Dolls", where
she soon gained a reputation for her
onset tenacity, preferring to "
live" her roles and remaining in
character even when the cameras stopped
rolling. It paid off though when
She reportedly refused to bathe for several
days before starting work on her role as a crack addict in
Spike Lee's Jungle Fever because the role provided her
big screen breakthrough. The following year,
she was
cast as
Eddie Murphy's
love interest in
Boomerang,
one of the few times that
Murphy was evenly matched on screen. In 1994,
Berry gained a youthful following for her
performance as sexy
secretary Sharon Stone in
The Flintstones.
she next had a highly publicized costarring role with
Jessica Lange in the adoption
drama Losing Isaiah). Though the movie received mixed reviews,
Berry didn't let that slow her down, and continued down her
path to superstardom. In 1998,
she received critical
success when
She starred as a
street smart
young woman who takes up with a struggling politician in
Warren Beatty's
Bulworth. The following year
she won even greater
acclaim for her role as actress
Dorothy Dandridge in made-for-cable's
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, for which
she won a
Golden Globe for
Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. When researching for her role of
Dorothy Dandridge,
She discovered that she and
Dorothy were both
born in the same
Cleveland,
Ohio hospital. In 2000, she received box
office success in
X-Men in which
she played
Storm, a mutant who has the
ability to control the weather. While enjoying the
spotlight at last,
Halle became a spokeswoman for
Revlon cosmetics.
She continued entering the spotlight when it was rumored that she was paid additionally to her $2.5 million salary to
bare her breasts in
Swordfish. That same year,
she took on her most
personal role in
Monster's Ball, for which
she earned an Oscar for her
performance.
Halle holds
the record as being the first African
American actress to win the Oscar for
Best Actress.
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IMDB
