Halle Berry Biography

Halle Berry is an Oscar winning actress perhaps best known for her astounding beauty, as well as her role as Storm in the X-men films.

Halle Maria Berry was born on August 14, 1966, in Cleveland, Ohio, and she was named after a local department store. Her parents, a hospital attendant and a psychiatric nurse, divorced when she was just four years old. As a result, Berry grew up with her mother and her older sister, Heidi. The sisters found growing up in a predominantly white area difficult, but Berry was determined to succeed anyway, and became popular at Bedford High School, where she was an honors society member, editor of the school newspaper, class president, cheerleader, and prom queen. After the prom, Berry’s boyfriend entered her in the Miss Teen Ohio beauty pageant, which she won, attracting the attention of modelling agencies. Berry was subsequently a runner up in Miss USA and Miss World pageants.

In 1986, Berry went on to study broadcast journalism at Cuyahoga Community College, but ended up dropping out to work as a model in Chicago. While there, she auditioned for a role in Charlie's Angels. The audition was unsuccessful, but she attracted the attention of producer Aaron Spelling, who encouraged her to pursue her lifelong dream of an acting career. Moving to Manhattan, Berry got a part in the TV show Living Dolls, alongside Leah Remini and David Moscow. Through this, Berry landed her first film role as the drug addict Vivian in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, which also starred Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra, Samuel L Jackson, and John Turturro. Managing to hold her own against all these stars, Berry won critical acclaim and successfully launched a film career which has been notable in its variety, including Tony Scott's The Last Boy Scout, with Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans; Boomerang, with Eddie Murphy, Robin Givens, and Grace Jones; and Gothika, with Robert Downey Jr. and Penélope Cruz. Berry voiced animated heroines in The Flintstones, with John Goodman, Rick Moranis, and Kyle MacLachlan, and Robots, with Ewan McGregor and Mel Brooks. She also played a Bond girl opposite Pierce Brosnan in 2002's Die Another Day. Most famously, Berry became the second black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar, for her role opposite Billy Bob Thornton in the highly acclaimed drama Monster's Ball. Ironically, she had previously starred in a biopic of the first black woman to win that Oscar, Dorothy Dandridge. Berry went on to prove that she can also be a gracious loser, stunning critics and making many new fans with her good humored acceptance speech at the 2005 Golden Raspberries, where her movie Catwoman won a slew of worst awards.