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Quick Facts
- NAME: Halle Berry
- OCCUPATION: Film Actress
- BIRTH DATE: August 14, 1966 (Age: 46)
- EDUCATION: Bedford High School, Cuyahoga Community College
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Cleveland, Ohio
- Full Name: Halle Maria Berry
- AKA: Halle Berry
- ZODIAC SIGN: Leo
Best Known For
Halle Berry is an American actress, former fashion model and former beauty queen. One of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, she is also a Revlon spokeswoman.
Videos see all videos
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Halle Berry - Oscar Win (1:33)
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Halle Berry - Beauty (1:00)
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Halle Berry - Full Episode (45:16)
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Halle Berry - Oscar Win
When Halle Berry started out as an actress, Hollywood was a very different place. Her career and her historic Oscar win for Best Actress have helped to change the landscape for African-American actresses.
Halle Berry - Beauty
Even though Halle Berry is one of Hollywood's leading ladies, that she has also set a new standard of beauty as the face of Revlon for over a decade.
Halle Berry - Full Episode
Halle Berry survived two divorces, a controversial hit and run charge, and a Razzie award for "Catwoman" to become the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Actress.
Oprah Winfrey - Mini Biography
Watch a short biography of Oprah Winfrey who hit the national spotlight with her talk show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Quiz
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Play NowHalle Berry. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 08:36, May 24, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339.
Halle Berry. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339 [Accessed 24 May 2013].
"Halle Berry." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 24 2013, 08:36 http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339.
"Halle Berry," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339 [accessed May 24, 2013].
"Halle Berry," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339 (accessed May 24, 2013).
Halle Berry [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 24] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339.
Halle Berry, http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339 (last visited May 24, 2013).
Halle Berry. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/halle-berry-9542339. Accessed May 24, 2013.
Synopsis
Born on August 14, 1966, in Cleveland, Ohio, Halle Berry an award-winning actress and former beauty queen. She won an Academy Award for best actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming the first African-American win an Oscar. Currently one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, Berry is also a Revlon spokeswoman.
Quotes
"Career is important, but nothing really supersedes my roles as a mother."
"I know I'm only one human being and I'm only making one tiny contribution and it's nothing more than that."
Early Life
Halle Maria Berry was born on August 14, 1966, in Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest daughter born to Jerome and Judith Berry, an interracial couple. Halle and her older sister, Heidi, spent the first few years of their childhood living in an inner-city neighborhood. In the early 1970s, Jerome Berry abandoned his wife and children, after which Judith moved her family to the predominantly white Cleveland suburb of Bedford.
Berry attended a nearly all-white public school, and as a result was subjected to discrimination at an early age. Her early bouts with racism greatly influenced her desire to excel. Throughout high school, the determined teen participated in a dizzying array of extracurricular activities, holding positions of newspaper editor, class president, and head cheerleader.
A natural performer, Berry earned a handful of beauty pageant titles during the early 1980s, including Miss Teen Ohio and Miss Teen America. She was eventually awarded first runner-up in the 1985 Miss U.S.A. competition. For a short time she attended Cleveland 's Cuyahoga Community College, where she studied broadcast journalism. However, Berry abandoned her idea of a career in news reporting before receiving her degree. Choosing to wholeheartedly devote her time to a career in entertainment, Berry first moved to Chicago and then New York City, where she found work as a catalog model.
Early Film Career
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, in 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 crticially acclaimed film, Jungle Fever. More substantial supporting roles followed, including that of a stripper in the action-thriller The Last Boy Scout (1991), starring Bruce Willis, and as the woman who finally wins Eddie Murphy's heart in the romantic comedy Boomerang (1992).
With a few films under her belt, Berry accepted more offbeat roles, making cameos in the rockumentary CB4 (1993), which traced the rise and fall of a rap group by the same name. In 1994, the live-action version of The Flintstones featured Berry as a Stone Age seductress.
Berry offered a no-holds-barred performance as a rehabilitated crack addict seeking to regain custody of her son in Losing Isaiah (1995). Berry, who played opposite Jessica Lange and David Strathairn, was noted for her believable portrayal of a mother struggling with addiction and loss.
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Famous Moms 27 people in this group
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African-American Biopics
View groupWho can forget Angela Bassett as Tina Turner or Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles? Do you remember who played Billie Holiday? Or who Beyoncé performed as in the film Cadillac Records? More recent African-American biopics include the Lifetime original movie Betty & Coretta (2013), starring Angela Bassett as Coretta Scott King and Mary J. Blige as Betty Shabazz, and The Butler (2013), starring Forest Whitaker and based on the life of Eugene Allen.
View our photos of African-American biopics to compare these famous figures to the actors and actresses who have portrayed them.
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Onscreen Superheroes
View groupThe world craves the idea of unattainable perfection, and the superhero—an aspirational figure who is stronger, faster and smarter than the average human—is the epitome of human perfection. For more than two centuries, philosophers, comic book artists, writers and academics have debated the role of the superhero, from how they should interact with society to what they should wear when they're saving the world. And now, with the rash of superhero films in Hollywood, the debate becomes who should portray these larger-than-life characters on the big screen. Here are the actors and actresses who have been chosen to represent the mighty superhero. Whether it's running faster than the speed of light or stopping a speeding train with one hand, these performers are renowned for bringing the vision of the superhero to reality.
Onscreen Superheroes 36 people in this group
