Actors - Halle Berry

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Halle Berry

	Actors - Halle Berry

Halle Maria Berry (born August 14, 1966) is an Academy Award-winning American actress and model. Halle Berry won Best Actress at the Academy Awards in 2002 for Monster's Ball, becoming the first African American woman to win this award.

Biography

Early life and career

Halle Berry's parents selected her first name from that of Halle's Department Store, a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio. She is the daughter of Judith Ann Hawkins, a Caucasian of English ancestry, and Jerome J. Berry, who is African-American. Berry's maternal grandmother, Nellie Dicken, was born in Sawley, Derbyshire, England, while her maternal grandfather, Earl Ellsworth Hawkins, was born in Ohio. Berry's parents divorced when she was 4 years old and she subsequently was raised by her mother, a psychiatric nurse. Her father was an orderly in the same psychiatric ward where her mother worked. Halle has an older sister, Heidi.

Berry was a popular student at Bedford High School and was a cheerleader, honor society member, editor of the school newspaper, class president and prom queen. She worked in the children's department at Higbee's Department store. Her personality, as described by a co-worker, was expressed in these terms..."I can hardly believe how sweet and nice she had been to everyone. People who weren't half as beautiful as she did not display the kind of inner beauty she exhibited." She subsequently attended Cuyahoga Community College.

Before becoming an actress, she entered several beauty contests, including Miss Ohio USA, Miss Teen All-American, Miss USA (first runner-up in 1986), and Miss World. She was a model before becoming an actress.

Hollywood career

In the late 1980s, she went to Chicago to pursue a modeling career as well as acting. One of her first acting projects was a television series for local cable by Gordon Lake Productions called "Chicago Force."

Berry auditioned for a role in an updated Charlie's Angels television series by producer Aaron Spelling. At the time, Spelling wanted one of the "Angels" to be an African American woman. She did not get the role (because the project never materialized) but she impressed Spelling with her skills, who encouraged her to continue perfecting her craft.

In 1989, Berry landed the role of brainy Emily Franklin in the short-lived ABC television series Living Dolls (which was a spin-off of Who's the Boss?). Her breakthrough feature film role was in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever
where she played a drug addict named Vivian. Her first co-starring role was in the film Strictly Business
. Another one of her early roles was in a beginning villian/friend in the Flintstones movie where she played "Sharon Stone" (a part rumored to have been intended for Sharon Stone). Berry would later co-star alongside Stone in Catwoman. The year before, Berry really caught the public's attention with her portrayal as a female mulatto slave in the TV adaption of Queen: The Story of an American Family
by Alex Haley.

Berry is also known by most comic book fans for her portrayal of Storm in the movie adaptation of the successful comic book X-Men
(2000) and its successful sequel X2: X-Men United
(2003). Berry will reprise her role again in the third installment X-Men 3 scheduled for a May 2006 release. In late 2003 Berry starred in the psychological thriller Gothika
opposite Charles S. Dutton, which was the first film that she "carried," i.e., her role was the most important one in the film.

Berry said her 2002 Academy Award win broke a "glass ceiling" for black women in Hollywood. Republican writer Ann Coulter fired back in her weekly column writing: Large-breasted, slightly cocoa women with idealized Caucasian features finally have a chance in Hollywood! They will, however, still be required to display their large breasts for the camera and to discuss their large breasts at some length with reporters

Known for her beauty, Halle as served many years as the face of Revlon cosmetics and was recently named the new face of Versace.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Halle Berry ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Halle Berry; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Actors - Halle Berry

Biography

Early life and career

Hollywood career

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay