Halle Maria Berry (IPA: /ˈhælɪ ˈbɛrɪ/; born August 14, 1966) is an American actress. Berry has received Emmy and Golden Globe awards and an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 for her performance in Monster's Ball. She is the only woman of African-American descent to have won the award for Best Actress.In the late 1980s, she went to Chicago to pursue a modeling career as well as acting. One of her first acting projects was a television series for local cable by Gordon Lake Productions called Chicago Force. In 1992, Berry was cast as the love interest in the video for R. Kelly's seminal hit, "Honey Love". Berry auditioned for a role in an updated Charlie's Angels television series with producer Aaron Spelling. She impressed Spelling and he encouraged her to continue acting.
In 1989, Berry landed the role of Emily Franklin in the short-lived ABC television series Living Dolls (a spin-off of Who's the Boss?). Her breakthrough feature film role was in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, in which she played a drug addict named Vivian. Her first co-starring role was in the 1991 film Strictly Business. In 1992, Berry portrayed a career woman who falls for Eddie Murphy in the romantic comedy Boomerang. That same year, she caught the public's attention as a headstrong biracial slave in the TV adaption of Queen: The Story of an American Family, based on the book by Alex Haley. Berry also played the sultry secretary who seduced Fred Flintstone in the live-action Flintstones movie as "Sharon Stone".
