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A former teenage beauty queen, Halle Berry traded a successful modeling career for acting in the late 1980s. After high school, this youngest daughter of a black father and white mother, entered the Miss Teen Ohio Pageant and won, representing the state at the Miss Teen All-American Pageant. An over-achiever since she was a child, Berry attempted to add another crown as Miss Ohio in the Miss USA competition but placed as first runner-up. After finishing in the top five at the Miss World pageant, she moved into modeling, working first in the Chicago area and later in NYC. By 1989, Berry had begun the transition to performing when she was appropriately cast as a teenage model in the short-lived ABC sitcom "Living Dolls". Guest work in other comedy series followed before she was able to convince Spike Lee she could handle the demanding role of a crack addict in his "Jungle Fever" (1991).

Delivering a harrowing performance in that film, Berry proved she was more than just a beauty. Finding roles that challenged her abilities, however, proved more daunting. She was cast as a femme fatale in "Strictly Business" and Damon Wayans' stripper girlfriend in "The Last Boy Scout" (both 1991) before portraying a career woman who falls for Eddie Murphy in "Boomerang" (1992) and a headstrong post-Civil War woman in the titular role of "Queen", a CBS miniseries, based on the book by Alex Haley. Berry then landed the role of a sultry secretary in the live-action "The Flintstones" (1994), winning the part after Sharon Stone rejected it. As a former drug addict struggling to regain custody of her son in "Losing Isaiah" (1995), the actress showed she could handle more serious fare, holding her own opposite powerhouse co-star Jessica Lange. Her hard-as-nails flight attendant was one of the few high points of the otherwise run-of-the-mill "Executive Decision" (1996), and she once again broke racial barriers as the spouse who finds herself framed for murder in "The Rich Man's Wife" (also 1996). Berry looked lovely but seemed miscast in the lead of the TV miniseries "The Wedding" (ABC, 1998), set in the upper middle class black milieu of Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s. She fared better as an intelligent woman raised by activists who gives an older politician (Warren Beatty) a new lease on life in "Bulworth" and as the singer Zola Taylor, one of the three wives of pop singer Frankie Lymon, in the unfortunately overlooked biopic "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" (both 1998).

In 1999, Berry was able to realize her life-long dream of portraying the singer-actress who broke racial barriers by becoming the first black woman to nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award in the HBO biopic "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge". Although both Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston had expressed a desire to play Dandridge in a film biography, Berry got there first, not only delivering a career-enhancing performance that netted her several awards, including an Emmy, but also serving as one of the producers of the project as well. The following year, she took sci-fi fans by "Storm" playing a beautiful mutant in Bryan Singer's big-screen version of the Marvel comic "X-Men". Her success was overshadowed a bit when she was involved in a car accident and left the scene to go to the hospital for treatment, leading to stories in the tabloid media. The actress pleaded no contest and settled a civil lawsuit out of court.

In 2001, Berry was reduced to being nothing more than decorative in the unspectacular thriller "Swordfish", a fact made all the more clear when she appeared topless for the first time in her career. The gratuitous scene did little for the film's plot, but it generated copy (including unfounded rumors that she got a $500,000 bonus to do the scene) and helped keep her in the spotlight. Later that same year, she delivered a brutally honest and moving performance as a struggling waitress coping with a husband on death row and an overweight child in "Monster's Ball". Downplaying her looks and tearing into a rare dramatic role that challenged her, Berry won critical plaudits for her work, which included a three-minute-long love scene with co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Her performance generated buzz, yielded some prizes from groups like the National Board of Review and the Screen Actors Guild. In March, she made history by becoming the first black woman ever to earn a Best Actress Academy Award.

Enjoying her newfound prominence in the industry, Berry accepted the role of Jinx in the 20th James Bond feature, "Die Another Day" (2002) opposite Pierce Brosnan's Agent 007. After completing that role, she segued to "X2" (2003), the sequel to "X-Men" in which she reprised her role as Storm..

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