In 2002 Halle Berry created quite a splash in Die Another Day, the 40th anniversary James Bond picture in which she replicated the Ursula Andress water-nymph scene from Dr. No (1962). Trading, again, on her knockout good looks and physique, Halle Berry became the “new” Bond girl for the new century.
Halle Berry was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1968. She grew up in a single-parent household after her mother and father divorced when she was four years old. In 1985 she was crowned Miss Teen All-American, then Miss Ohio, and in 1986 she was the runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant. Halle Berry used her pageant money to attend Cuyahoga Community College and switched from broadcast journalism to acting classes. She quit school and moved to Chicago and then, in 1988, moved to New York City, where she modeled and took acting classes.
In 1989, Halle Berry was chosen to play a model in Living Dolls, an ABC television sitcom. Her other television work included four segments on the CBS nighttime soap opera Knots Landing. Her first feature film was Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever (1991), in which she played the part of a crackaddicted prostitute. Also in 1991 Halle Berry played a smart “bombshell” waitress in Strictly Business, a film that was not well received. She scored in The Last Boy Scout (1991), a mindless Bruce Willis action film. Her brief role in the film was as a strip-club dancer who was murdered. Ironically, Halle Berry wanted to avoid being seen even partially nude on camera, an inhibition that Halle Berry has since overcome.
In the Eddie Murphy feature Boomerang (1992), Halle Berry played a different kind of role, a sensible, sensitive woman, in contrast to the other predatory women in the film (Eartha Kitt, Grace Jones, and Robin Givens). She was also active in television, appearing as the star of Queen (1993), the multipart finale to Alex Haley’s epic Roots. This role won Halle Berry the Best Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries Award from the NAACP in 1994. In The Flintstones (1994) she played Fred Flintstone’s sexy secretary. In Losing Isaiah (1994) Halle Berry played one of her strongest roles as a drug-addicted mother whose child is adopted by Jessica Lange, who battles a rehabilitated Halle Berry for custody of the child.
An indication that Halle Berry’s star was rising came in 1995 when the MTV movie awards called her the “most desirable female” in the entertainment industry. Despite her newfound popularity, she found little work that enhanced her acting reputation until Warren Beatty discovered her more obvious talents in Bulworth (1998). Thereafter she played one of three widows fighting for her share of the doo-wop artist Frankie Lymon’s estate in Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). This was followed by her award-winning performance in an HBO film, the tragic story of a gifted 1950s star, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. After winning her Emmy Award, Halle Berry appeared as Storm, a scary weather girl, in X-Men (2002), based on the very popular Marvel comics series.
Halle Berry briefly totally exposed her body in the John Travolta action movie Swordfish (2001), which raked in an impressive $70 million. Her breakthrough picture, however, was surely Monster’s Ball (2001), directed by Marc Forster. Halle Berry effectively played a single mother who falls in love with Hank, a prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) who executed the father of her son, who is later killed in an automobile accident. After Hank’s son commits suicide, the two are united in grief and intercourse. The naked coupling of Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry crossed the threshold of miscegenation in a remarkable and precedent-setting way. Halle Berry won an Oscar for her performance in Monster’s Ball.
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