Halle Berry, 51, is an award-winning American actress who won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film Monster’s Ball. Despite winning the award in 2001, Berry is still the only African-American woman to have won that award.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Halle’s name came from Halle’s Department Store, which was a local landmark in Cleveland. Berry graduated from Bedford High School before attending Cuyahoga Community College. In 1989, when she was 23 years old, she moved to New York City to pursue an acting career.
Her breakthrough film roles were in the films Boomerang, The Flintstones, and the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Movie.
In addition to her Academy Award-winning role in Monster’s Ball, Berry also appeared in X-Men (2000), the action crime thriller Swordfish, Die Another Day and the X-Men sequels, X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand.