Halle Maria Berry (born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant and coming in sixth in the Miss World 1986. Her breakthrough film role was in the romantic comedy Boomerang (1992), alongside Eddie Murphy, which led to roles in films, such as the family comedy The Flintstones (1994), the political comedy-drama Bulworth (1998) and the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic drama film Monster's Ball (2001), becoming the only woman of color to have won the award. She took on high-profile roles for much of the 2000s, such as Storm in X-Men (2000) and its sequels X2 (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006); Bond girl Jinx in Die Another Day (2002); and in the thriller Gothika (2003). In the 2010s, she featured in the science-fiction film Cloud Atlas (2012), the crime thriller The Call (2013) and the action films X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019).
Berry was one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood during the 2000s, and has been involved in the production of several of the films in which she performed. Berry is also a Revlon spokesmodel. She was formerly married to baseball player David Justice, singer-songwriter Eric Benét, and actor Olivier Martinez. She has a child each with Martinez and model Gabriel Aubry.
Last Updated: June 9, 2021
