Halle Berry Biography

Halle Berry (Halle Maria Berry) was born on 14 August, 1968 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA to Judith Ann Hawkins and Jerome J. Berry. Her mother Judith is a Liverpudlian and father Jerome is African American. Halle has a older sister, Heidi. Her parents divorced when she was four years old. Halle and Heidi was grew up with their mother, who was a psychiatric nurse. Halle was a popular student in school as she was a cheerleader, editor of the school newspaper, honor society member, class president and prom queen. She has attended a Bedford High School and attended Cuyahoga Community College, studied broadcast journalism.

Before enter into acting career, Halle has won numerous beauty contests including Miss Ohio USA (at 17), Miss Teen All-American, Miss USA 1986 (first runner-up), and Miss World 1986.

In 1980, Halle went to Chicago to pursue career in modeling and acting. Her first acting project was a TV series of Gordon Lake Productions "Chicago Force". Halle has also auditioned for a role in an updated Charlie's Angels television series. But she didn't get the role because the project never materialized. In 1989, Halle got a role in ABC television series "Living Dolls" as a brainy Emily Franklin.

While Berry got a break in films as a drug addict, Vivian in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever". She first co-starred in film "Strictly Business". Her next film was the villain/friend in the Flintstones as "Sharon Stone". In 1996, Halle landed a role of Sandra Beecher in "Race the Sun". The film was based on a true story. While Berry got her first attention with Alex Haley's TV adaptation "Queen: The Story of an American Family", where she played a portrayal as a female biracial slave.

Halle is also popular in X-Men comic fans because she played a role of the regal mutant Storm in movie adaptation of a comic X-Men i.e. X-Men (2000) and its sequels "X2: X-Men United (2003)" and "X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)". Yet the best has come to her, in 2001 Halle appeared in "Monster's Ball(2001)", for which she got the Academy Award as a Best Actress. In 2002, she appeared as a Bond Girl Jinx in "Die Another Day", which was again a huge success.

In 2003, Berry was appeared in "Gothika", which was a psychological thriller casted opposite Charles S. Dutton. It was first film in which she landed a most important role. Next Halle was starred in "Catwoman", which earned her a "worst actress" Razzie award (2005). In 2005, she casted in the TV movie "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and given her voice to the animated film "Robots".

Apart from acting Halle is also working with author Angela Nissel as an executive producer to produce an HBO comedy series "The Broke Diaries and Mixed: My Life in Black and White", which is based on Nissel's two memoirs. Halle has also worked as the face of "Revlon" cosmetics and was recently picked as the new face of "Versace".