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Welcome to
The Halle Berry Picture Pages!
Congratulations to Halle for her recent Academy Award.
However, many people had something to say about the
overlong monologue:
"Personally, I think her speech was quite touching and
inspiring. Also, I think she deserved more than anything
to win the award because I found her role quite
challenging" ... Julie
"She was awarded that Oscar because of her acting and
judging from the speech it was well deserved" ... Nigel
"I am happy for Ms Berry that she won, but that she
should put so much stock in winning an Oscar is a little
bit over the top" ... Kaye
"In the speeches by 'black' actors the overwhelming
theme was 'black actors'. In the same breath they were
saying that it shouldn't make a difference what colour
you are. You can't have it both ways. Either you want to
highlight the difference or don't. The more it's
mentioned that black has triumphed over white, the more
the race issue will come to the fore" ... Richard
"If whites had been the persecuted minority in the
United States, and blacks had been the slave-owners,
Halle Berry could have been the first white actress to
win an Academy Award in a lead role. She's half white!"
... Jason
Tell me what you think!
Halle Berry and her sister were raised by their mother
Judith, a nurse in a psychiatric ward, after their
abusive father left the family when Halle was four.
However, the rough start to her life didn't deter her
from excelling in all she did.
While in high school she was a cheerleader, editor of
the school newspaper, member of the honor society and
not surprisingly, a prom queen. She also achieved the
status of Miss Ohio, Miss Teen All-American, and in
1986, was first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant, and
the first African-American to represent the U.S. in the
Miss World competition in London.
In Cleveland Halle Berry studied broadcast journalism at
the Cuyahoga Community College, and for few years she
modeled in Chicago, which led to her first weekly TV
series, 1989's Living Dolls. An actress of striking
beauty and elegance, she rapidly gained a reputation for
on-set tenacity, preferring to "live" her roles and
remaining in character even when the cameras stopped
turning. This technique was not universally condoned by
her fellow workers, especially when she reportedly
refused to bathe for several days before starting work
on her role as a crack addict in Spike Lee's Jungle
Fever (1991). However, such intense preparation paid
off, as Berry's work on Lee's film provided her screen
breakthrough.
The following year, Halle was cast as Eddie Murphy's
love interest in Boomerang, one of the few times that
the explosive Murphy was evenly matched on screen.
Usually appearing in adult-oriented films, Berry gained
a youthful following for her performance as sexy
secretary Sharon Stone in The Flintstones (1994). She
next had a highly publicized co-starring stint with
Jessica Lange in the adoption drama Losing Isaiah
(1995). Her turn as a former crack addict battling to
gain custody of her child, who as an infant was adopted
by an upper-class white couple, received mixed reviews.
Some observers felt that her scenes with Lange merely
amplified Berry's artistic shortcomings, while others
believed that she had never given a more dynamic
performance.
Opinion of the actress' work was overwhelmingly
favorable in 1998, when Halle Berry starred as a street
smart young woman who takes up with a struggling
politician in Warren Beatty's Bulworth; the following
year she won even greater acclaim for her turn as tragic
screen presence Dorothy Dandridge in the made-for-cable
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Unfortunately, any
acclaim Berry enjoyed was overshadowed by her widely
publicized brush with the law on February 23, 2000, when
she allegedly ran a red light, slammed into another car,
and then left the scene of the accident. The actress,
who suffered a gash to her forehead (the driver of the
other car sustained a broken wrist), was booked at a
misdemeanor court in early April of that year.
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