Halle Berry (1966- ) is an American actress, the first black woman ever to win an Oscar for Best Actress. In America she is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful black women alive, even now in her 40s. She was Miss Ohio USA in 1986, a Bond girl in “Die Another Day” (2002) and has long been a face for Revlon.
While she is beautiful, I would not go to see a film just because she is in it, like I would with Gabrielle Union.
She won the Oscar for playing the lead in “Monster’s Ball” (2001), where we see her make love to the white racist prison guard who put her husband to death. Angela Bassett refused the part because of how it made black women look. Berry took it and won an Oscar.
After the Oscar win and her success playing Storm in the X-Men films (2000-2006), she was given the lead in “Catwoman” (2004). Few black actresses are given the lead in any film aimed mainly at white people, at least not without appearing opposite a white person. Unfortunately, “Catwoman” was terrible – so terrible she won a Razzie Award for it, which she accepted with good grace.
She does not try to just get by on her pretty looks. When she was going to play a crackhead in “Jungle Fever” (1991) she talked to crackheads and went for ten days without a bath. I can still remember her performance.
Apart from the Oscar she won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for what I think is her best film by far: “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge” (1999). She was perfect. She is something of a latter-day Dorothy Dandridge herself.
She has been married twice: first to baseball player David Justice (1992-1997), then to singer Eric Benet (2001-2005). She is now in a long-term relationship with Canadian model Gabriel Aubry, who is white and ten years younger than her. They have a daughter together, Nahla, born in 2008.
Life with Aubry seems to be a happy one, but her past with men has not always been so happy. One boyfriend hit her so hard that to this day she cannot hear well out of her right ear. When Justice asked for a divorce she was in such pain she came close to killing herself – only the thought of her mother finding her body pulled her back from the edge.
She is diabetic, the kind where you need to take shots all the time.
She is 5 foot 5 (1.66m), too short to be a model.
She is named after Halle’s department store in Cleveland, where she grew up. Her mother is white, her father is black. Her father left when she was four. He came back once but then was gone again for the rest of her childhood.
When they moved out of Cleveland to live in the suburbs people called her “zebra” and put Oreo cookies in her mailbox. Her mother told her that when people look at her all they will ever see is someone black: they will not know that her mother is white – nor will they care.
See also:
- Monster’s Ball
- Halle Berry is not the most beautiful black woman in the world
- What if Halle Berry were good-looking for a white girl? – What if everything about whites and blacks in America were the other way round?
- She tops these lists:
- She gets an honourable mention on this list made by me:
- black actresses
- biracial
- Jezebel stereotype
- Dorothy Dandridge
- Gabrielle Union
Abagond 