Halle Berry

Biography:

Halle American actress Maria Berry  was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966. She started out as a model and competed in a number of beauty pageants, placing sixth in Miss World 1986 and first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant in 1986. Alongside Eddie Murphy, she starred in the romantic comedy Boomerang (1992), which paved the way for roles in The Flintstones (1994), Bulworth (1998), and the television movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she received both a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy.

Throughout the 2000s, Berry became one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses. Berry was the first woman of color and the only African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of a suffering widow in the romantic drama Monster’s Ball (2001). Berry played well-known characters including Storm in four X-Men movie series (2000–2014), the titular part in the much-maligned Catwoman (2004), Bond girl Jinx in Die Another Day (2002), and the henchwoman of a robber in the thriller Swordfish (2001).

Her later films, including Perfect Stranger (2007), Cloud Atlas (2012), and The Call (2013), received mixed reviews from critics and the general public. In 2014, Berry started her own production business, 606 Films, and has since worked on several projects, including the science fiction series Extant on CBS (2014–2015). She starred in the action movies John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017). In 2020, she directed her first Netflix drama, Bruised.