Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent.
Halle first came into the spotlight at seventeen years when she won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, representing the state of Ohio in 1985 and, a year later in 1986, when she was the first runner-up in the Miss U.S.A. Pageant.
In 1998, she gained critical acclaim for her role as a street-smart young woman alongside a struggling politician in Warren Beatty’s “Bulworth.” The next year, she garnered even more praise portraying actress Dorothy Dandridge in “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. Her box office success came in 2000 with “X-Men,” where she portrayed the mutant “Storm,” endowed with the power to control the weather.
