Hally Berry at the annual Silver Rose Gala and Auction, benefiting the Jenesse Center at Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA, April 27. Photo Credit: PR PhotosMay 4, 2008 (Sawf News) - Academy Award, Emmy, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG-Award winning American actress Halle Maria Berry, is known for films such as X-Men and Die Another Day. She is one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood.
Halle is the first and only woman of African-American descent to have won the Academy award for Best Actress, for her performance in Monster's Ball (2001).
Born on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio, Halle is the daughter of Judith Ann (née Hawkins), a white, psychiatric nurse, and Jerome Jesse Berry, an African-American hospital attendant. Her parents worked in the same psychiatric ward, till her father moved on to become a bus driver.
Halle studied at Bedford High School, and later attended Cuyahoga Community College.
She was the runner up in the Miss USA 2008 pageant, participating as Miss Ohio.
Halle started her career as a model in late 1980s but soon found TV acting assignments.
She featured in the short lived ABC television series Living Dolls. During its taping in 1989, she lapsed into a coma and was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type 1.
In 1991 she became a Hollywood star with a role in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever.
Halle became a Revlon spokeswoman in 1996 and has remained one since then.
She received Emmy and Golden Globe awards for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.
Berry has been married twice. Her first marriage, in 1992 to Atlanta Braves baseball player David Justice, ended in divorce in 1996 because their professional commitments did not allow them to spend enough time with each other.
Her second marriage was to musician Eric Benét, whom she met in 1997 and married in early 2001. Halle adopted Eric's daughter India. The couple separated in 2003, and their divorce was finalized in 2005.
Halle, who has said "I never want to be married again", is currently in a relationship with French-Canadian supermodel Gabriel Aubry, whom she met at a Versace photo shoot, and started dating in November 2005.
She gave birth to a girl named Nahla Ariela Aubry on March 16, 2008 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
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