Halle Berry is a stunning actress born to interracial parents - African American father Jerome Berry, a former hospital attendant, and Caucasian mother Judith Berry. Halle Berry is the first
frican-American ever to win an Oscar as best actress. Halle Berry was born on Born August 14, 1968, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was raised along with her sister Heidi by her mother who was a psychiatric nurse because her father walked out of the family when she was just four and returned back when she was eight.
Life was not easy for this girl coming from a mixed race. Halle was studying in an all white school and therby she had to face utter discrimination and hatred of her school mates.
She however participated in a dizzying array of extracurricular activities, holding positions of newspaper editor, class president, and head cheerleader.
Halle easily won Miss Ohio, Miss Teen All-American, and in 1986, was first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant. She was the first African American to represent the U.S. in the Miss World competition in London. Halle attended Cleveland's Cuyahoga Community College, where she studied broadcast journalism.
Berry moved to Chicago then New York City, where she found work as a catalog model. As the ‘80s turned into the ‘90s, the aspiring actress began a career in television with a role on the short-lived sitcom Living Dolls, 1989, followed by a year-long run on the CBS prime-time drama Knot’s Landing, 1991. Berry’s first big-screen break came later that year when she was cast as Samuel L. Jackson’s drug-addicted girlfriend in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever.
Halle Berry is the epitome of beauty and talent. Her incredible charm, charisma, glow all add up to unbelievable good looks.
Black audiences warmed up to Halle Berry, and producers kept her phone ringing off the hook. She scored a solid part in The Last Boy Scout, 1991 and would star in a series of mostly light-hearted popcorn films, like Boomerang, 1992, The Program, 1993 and Fatherhood, 1993. But Halle also proved she was interested in stretching as an actress. She didn’t want to be seen as just window dressing. She proved herself an effective dramatic lead opposite Jessica Lange in the heart-lugging drama Losing Isaiah, 1993. In 1994, Berry gained a youthful following for her performance as sexy secretary Sharon Stone in Flintstones.
Halle’s personal life was blooming along with her career. Though she had been through many abusive relationships, including one in which a man beat her so merciless that she lost 80% hearing in her left ear, in 1993 she met and fell in love with Atlanta Braves outfielder David Justice.
Halle proposed to Justice six months after they met. The couple had a fairy tale wedding and were regularly featured in magazines as one of the most beautiful celebrity couples. Sadly their marriage faultered in less than three years ending bitterly.
Halle overcame Hollywood's racial barriers when she was cast as the first African American to play the Queen of Sheeba in Showtime’s movie Solomon & Sheeba in late 93.
Berry’s other credits included two 1996 crime thrillers-The Rich Man’s Wife, and Executive Decision, which marked her first leading role in a feature film. She took a turn as one of three wives laying claim to Frankie Lyman’s estate in the 1998 biographical drama Why Do Fools Fall in Love, and played a liberal urban youth in the political satire Bulworth,1998, opposite Hollywood veteran Warren Beatty. In 1999, Berry released her most passionate project to date, co-producing and starring in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, an HBO
biopic. Berry was noted for her striking resemblance to the late Dandridge, and for her engaging depiction of the actress’ struggle to succeed in the racially biased industry of 1950s Hollywood. Berry earned both a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Television Movie for her role.
More recently, Halle starred in the live film adaptation of the cartoon strip X-Men, as
Storm/Ororo Munroe-along with fellow mutants Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Famke Janssen-and she presently makes a whopping $2.5 million for each film role she accepts. She has also returned to modeling, as a spokesperson for Revlon.
Because Halle was diagnosed with diabetes not too long ago, she is an avid volunteer of the Juvenile Diabetes Association. On a happier note, Halle became engaged to soul singer Eric Benet in 1999, and eventually married the R&B singer and actor in 2001. Benet has a daughter, India (born 1991).
Unfortunately, Halle made headlines when she was charged with a hit and run in 2000, and pleaded no contest-the judge ordered her to perform 200 hours of community service. She also made the news when she was allegedly paid a $500,000 bonus to reveal her breasts in a scene in 2001's hacker film, Swordfish.
Halle received the 2002 SAG award for Best Actress in Monster's Ball and made history at the Oscars as the first black actress to receive a Best Actress Academy Award. Her Oscar triumph has cemented her as an A-list actress.
Halle has also appeared in the second installment of what looks like an X-Men franchise, and as Jinx in the James Bond film, Die Another Day released in early 2003.
But no matter how good she looks, Halle’s fans know that her beauty is just a reflection of the kind of inner beauty that fuels icons.
In a short romance, Halle was involved in a stormy relationship with "Jungle Fever" costar Wesley Snipes. In 1993, she married Atlanta Braves outfielder David Justice, and three years later, Berry filed for a divorce, which was finalized in 1997. After a nasty divorce from Justice, Halle became secretly engaged to Eric
Benét, a jazz musician, in August of 1999. The engagement was announced in December of that year. Halle introduced Benét as her "husband" at the public unveiling of her official Web site,
Hallewood, in February 2001, while the couple actually wed two weeks before at an undisclosed tropical location. Recently, Halle has been introduced as the new Bond Girl, and we are sure to see her in a very sexy role in the near future. |
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