Halle Berry

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 , 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 , Bulworth , X-Men and its sequels, and Die Another Day . 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 Ben?t, 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.

Early life Berry, as Miss Ohio USA 1987, preparing to embark on a USO tour with other Miss USA 1986 contestants

Berry was born Maria Halle Berry, though her name was legally changed to Halle Maria Berry in 1971. Berry's parents selected her middle name from Halle's Department Store, which was then a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother, Judith Ann , is a Caucasian psychiatric nurse. Her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, is an African-American hospital attendant in the same psychiatric ward where her mother worked and later became a bus driver. Berry's maternal grandmother, Nellie Dicken, was born in Sawley, Derbyshire, England, while her maternal grandfather, Earl Ellsworth Hawkins , was born in Ohio. Berry's parents divorced when she was four years old and she was subsequently raised by her mother