By: Brittney Corrado, Laila Schwin, and Alisha Bains
March 30, 2021
Halle Maria Berry was born as Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966, in Cleveland, Ohio. She is an American actress, but she began her career as a model. She had considerable success as a model and eventually branched out into acting, where she became famous.
Berry grew up in Oakwood, Ohio, and attended Bedford High School for the later part of her teenage years. After high school, she went on to study at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) for Broadcast Journalism, but she later decided not to pursue this field.
She then started her modeling career by entering several beauty contests; she had much success in these competitions. She won the title of Miss Teen All-America in 1985 and then the title of Miss Ohio (USA) in 1986. She went on to be the runner-up in the 1986 Miss USA competition. Shortly after, she became the first African-American to ever enter the Miss World competition in 1986 in which she finished sixth. Berry then went on to New York City to pursue a true modeling career, but not just for pageants. Her modeling career did not quite work out, but it opened the door to an acting career.
Berry’s breakthrough was in the romantic comedy Boomerang in 1992 with Eddie Murphy. This then catapulted her into leading roles in many other films, too, such as the family comedy The Flintstones (1994), the political comedy-drama Bulworth (1998), and the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandrige (1999). She won a Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the film Their Eyes Were Watching God and a Golden Globe Award for her role in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.
Halle Berry is most-known for her acting, and her career continued to skyrocket with her roles in Catwoman, Monster’s Ball, and X-Men. She won the Academy Award for best actress in 2002 for her acting in Monster’s Ball in which she played the character, Leticia Musgrove. Also, she was the first African-American to win the Academy Award for best actress, which is a monumental and historic achievement.
She has been nominated for and received a wide range of various other awards for her acting as well, including several MTV Movie and TV awards, NAACP Image awards, and Screen Actors Guild awards. She received these and quite a few other nominations and minor awards throughout the entirety of her acting career, which just adds to her reputation as an actress and to her overall success throughout the years.
Berry began dating actor Olivier Martinez in March of 2012. The couple then got engaged, and in April of 2013, they announced that they were expecting their first child together. On July 13, 2013, the couple got married. That October, their first child was born, a boy named Maceo-Robert. Two years later, the couple announced their divorce, which became final in December of 2016.
With a strong start to her career and many adventures and roles still ahead, Halle Berry has made history as an actress, a model, and an all-around influential woman. She does not seem to be stopping any time soon, and her future works will undoubtedly be just as great as her previous ones.
{Editor’s Note: Information for this article was retrieved from Biography.com.}
THE RETURN OF THE EYE 