Halle Maria Berry is an Academy Award-, Emmy Award- and Golden Globe-winning American actress, former fashion model, and beauty queen. Berry has received Emmy and Golden Globe awards for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 for her performance in Monster’s Ball, becoming the first and still only woman of African-American descent to have won the award for Best Actress. She is one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood and also a Revlon spokeswoman. She is attempting to expand into the production side of Hollywood.
Before becoming an actress, Berry entered several beauty contests, finishing runner-up in the Miss USA (1986), and winning the Miss USA World 1986 title. Her breakthrough feature film role was in the 1991 Jungle Fever. This led to roles in The Flintstones (1994), Bulworth (1998), X-Men (2000) and its sequels, and Die Another Day (2002). She also won a worst actress Razzie award in 2005 for Catwoman and accepted the award in person.
Divorced from baseball player David Justice and musician Eric Benét, Berry has been dating French-Canadian model Gabriel Aubry since November 2005. Their first child, a girl named Nahla Ariela Aubry, was born on March 16, 2008.
Acting career
In the late 1980s, Berry went to Illinois 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. In 1989, Berry landed the role of Emily Franklin in the short-lived ABC television series Living Dolls (a spin-off of Who’s the Boss?). She went on to have a recurring role on the long running serial Knots Landing. In 1992, Berry was cast as the love interest in the video for R. Kelly’s seminal single, “Honey Love”.
Her breakthrough feature film role was in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, in which she played a drug addict named Vivian. Her first co-starring role was in the 1991 film Strictly Business. In 1992, Berry portrayed a career woman who falls for Eddie Murphy in the romantic comedy Boomerang. That same year, she caught the public’s attention as a headstrong biracial slave in the TV adaptation of Queen: The Story of an American Family, based on the book by Alex Haley. Berry was in the live-action Flintstones movie as “Sharon Stone”, the sultry secretary who seduced Fred Flintstone.
Playing a former drug addict struggling to regain custody of her son in Losing Isaiah (1995), Berry tackled a more serious role, starring opposite co-star Jessica Lange. She portrayed Sandra Beecher in Race the Sun (1996), which was based on a true story, and co-starred alongside Kurt Russell in Executive Decision. From 1996 onwards, she was a Revlon spokeswoman for seven years and renewed her contract in 2004.
In 1998, Berry received praise for her role in Bulworth as an intelligent woman raised by activists who gives a politician (Warren Beatty) a new lease on life. The same year, she played the singer Zola Taylor, one of the three wives of pop singer Frankie Lymon, in the biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love. In the 1999 HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, she portrayed the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Berry’s performance was recognized with several awards, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
Berry portrayed the mutant superhero Storm in the film adaptation of the comic book series X-Men (2000) and its sequels, X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In 2001, Berry appeared in the film Swordfish, which featured her first on-screen nude scene. At first, she refused to be filmed topless in a sunbathing scene, but she changed her mind when Warner Brothers raised her fee substantially. The brief flash of her breasts added $500,000 to her fee. After turning down numerous roles that required nudity, she said she decided to make Swordfish because her husband Benet supported her and encouraged her to take risks.
In 2001, Berry appeared as Leticia Musgrove, the wife of an executed murderer, in the film Monster’s Ball. Her performance was awarded the National Board of Review and the Screen Actors Guild prizes, and earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Berry made history by becoming the first African-American woman to receive a Best Actress Academy Award. the NAACP issued the statement “Congratulations to Halle Berry and Denzel Washington for giving us hope and making us proud. If this is a sign that Hollywood is finally ready to give opportunity and judge performance based on skill and not on skin color then it is a good thing.” Her role also generated controversy. Berry’s graphic, nude love scene with a racist character played by co-star Billy Bob Thornton, was the subject of much media chatter and discussion among African-Americans. Many in the African-American community were critical of Berry for taking the part. Berry responded: “I don’t really see a reason to ever go that far again. That was a unique movie. That scene was special and pivotal and needed to be there, and it would be a really special script that would require something like that again.”
Berry asked for a higher fee for Revlon advertisements after winning Academy Award, and Ron Perleman, the cosmetics firms chief congratulated her, saying how happy he was that she modelled for his company. She replied: “Of course, you’ll have to pay me more.” Perleman stalked off with rage. Her win at the Academy Awards led to two famous “Oscar moments.” In accepting her award, she gave an acceptance speech honoring previous black actresses who had never had the opportunity. she said “This moment is so much bigger than me. This is for every nameless, faceless woman of colour who now has a chance tonight because this door has been opened.” One year later, as she presented the Best Actor award, winner Adrien Brody ran on stage and, instead of giving her the standard peck on the cheek, planted a long kiss on Berry.
Personal life
Berry has been married twice; her first marriage in 1992 to former baseball player David Justice, ended in divorce in 1996. Justice played with the Atlanta Braves and experienced a measure of fame as the team rose to prominence in the early 1990s. The couple found it difficult to maintain their relationship while he was playing baseball and she was filming elsewhere. Berry has stated publicly that she was so disappointed after her breakup with Justice that she considered taking her own life. But she could not bear the thought of her mother finding her body.
Berry’s second marriage was to musician Eric Benét. They met in 1997 and married in early 2001 on a beach in Santa Barbara. Berry credited Benét with support after she was involved in a February 2000 car accident. She suffered a concussion and left the scene of the accident before the police arrived, resulting in a misdemeanor charge. The incident became fodder for comedians. Berry stated she felt “really good about the resolution”; she pled no contest, paid a fine and was placed on three years’ probation.
The couple, however, separated in 2003. After the separation, Berry stated, “I want love, and I will find it, hopefully”. While married to Benét, Berry adopted his daughter, India. The divorce was finalized in January 2005. She was not entertaining thoughts of suicide as she had after splitting with Justice: “I would never, ever, ever think of doing that again.”
In November 2005, Berry began dating French-Canadian supermodel Gabriel Aubry, ten years her junior. The couple met at a Versace photoshoot. After six months with Aubry, she stated in an interview, “I’m really happy in my personal life, which is a novelty to me. You know, I’m not the girl that has the best relationships”.
Berry revealed on Extra that she plans to adopt children. “I will adopt if it doesn’t happen for me naturally”, she said. “I will definitely adopt. And I probably will adopt even if it does happen naturally”. Later she stated, “I never want to be married again. I guess you could say I have bad taste in men. But I no longer feel the need to be someone’s wife. I don’t feel like I need to be validated by being in a marriage”. Berry insists the couple’s life is already complete without the need for a marriage and feels “more married than ever before.”
Berry said that it was her experience playing a mother in “Things We Lost In The Fire” that opened her mind to the possibility of motherhood. After initially denying rumors, she confirmed in September 2007 that she was three months pregnant. Berry hired security guards after receiving racist threats to her unborn baby from a stalker saying her child will be “cut into hundreds of pieces.” She stated “Gabriel is a wonderful person and I am just happy I’ve found someone really special to have a baby with.” She has stated that she hopes to have a second child right away.
At age 41, Berry gave birth to a girl named Nahla Ariela Aubry on March 16, 2008 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Nahla means “honeybee” in Arabic; Ariela is Hebrew for “lion for God”. Berry spent $60,000 furnishing three nurseries for her baby.
Biography from Wikipedia
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