Halle Berry's Place of Birth:

Cleveland, Ohio

Birth Date:

August 14, 1966

Role That Really Got Halle Berry Noticed:

Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever (1991) for her convincing performance as the drug addict Vivian.

TV Credit of Note:

Berry's first weekly TV series was 1989's Living Dolls. Berry proved her show biz aspiration by remaining in character after the cameras stopped rolling.

Interesting Trivia:

- Berry has been the face of Revlon cosmetics for many years and was named the face of Versace.

- According to her official site, Berry' favorite food is grilled tuna with garlic mashed potatoes.
- Halle Berry is a diabetic.

Notable Honor:

Halle Berry was the first African American actress to win the Oscar for Best Actress.

Halle Berry's Personal Life:

Berry's personal life has been less successful than her film career. In 1992 she married pro baseball player David Justice and divorced him in 1996. She married musician Eric Benet in 2001. The couple separated in 2004 and divorced in 2005.

Halle Berry Mini-Biography:

Born Halle Maria Berry, her African American father Jerome Berry, was a former hospital attendant, and her Caucasian mother Judith Berry, a retired psychiatric nurse. Her parents divorced when she was four. During her high school years in Bedford, Ohio, Berry was a cheerleader, class president, honor society member, fashion editor of the school paper and prom queen.

At age 17 Berry won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, representing the state of Ohio in 1985 and a year later she was the first runner-up in the 1986 Miss USA Pageant.

Her natural poise and striking beauty landed Berry a short modeling career before she moved to Hollywood where started in TV and quickly transitioned to movie roles.

Her first feature film, Jungle Fever , propelled Berry’s career, acknowledging that she wasn’t afraid to look bad onscreen and could turn in a believable performance. After several more TV parts and non-significant film roles, Berry scored again when she played Storm, a mutant who has the ability to control the weather in X-Men (2000). The success of the film and its stars spawned the sequel X-Men 2 in 2003 and X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006.

Berry drew scorn from her fans in 2001 for appearing topless in Swordfish with John Travolta. That same year she rebounded by pouring her heart into the role of Leticia Musgrove, the wife of a recently executed prisoner in Monster’s Ball with Billy Bob Thornton. She earned a Best Actress Oscar for her efforts. Few will ever forget her heartfelt and tearful sobbing on the stage when she accepted the award as the first African American actress to claim that honor.

How Berry could then turn in one of her most disappointing performances in Catwoman (2004) is questionable. She not only received horrible reviews, but won a "worst actress" Razzie award, which humorously she accepted in person in 2005.

Other film credits include Perfect Stranger (2007), Things We Lost in the Fire (2007), and Frankie and Alice (2010).