Halle Maria Berry Born (Date): August 14, 1966 Born (Location): Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. Occupation: Actress Years active: From 1989 Halle Maria Berry ( born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant and coming in sixth in the Miss World 1986. Her breakthrough film role was in the romantic comedy Boomerang (1992), alongside Eddie Murphy, which led to roles in The Flintstones (1994) and Bulworth (1998) as well as the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Berry established herself as one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood during the 2000s. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance of a struggling widow in the romantic drama Monster's Ball (2001)—becoming the only African-American woman to have won the award. A varying critical and commercial reception followed in subsequent years, with Perfect Stranger (2007), Cloud Atlas (2012) and The Call (2013) being among her notable film releases in that period. She launched a production company, 606 Films, in 2014 and has been involved in the production of a number of projects in which she performed, such as the CBS science fiction series Extant (2014–2015). She appeared in the action films Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and made her directorial debut with the Netflix drama Bruised (2020). Media image Berry was ranked No. 1 on People's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" list in 2003 after making the top ten seven times and appeared No. 1 on FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" the same year. She was named Esquire magazine's "Sexiest Woman Alive" in October 2008, about which she stated: "I don't know exactly what it means, but being 42 and having just had a baby, I think I'll take it." Men's Health ranked her at No. 35 on their "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" list. In 2009, she was voted #23 on Empire's 100 Sexiest Film Stars. The same year, rapper Hurricane Chris released a song entitled "Halle Berry (She's Fine)," extolling Berry's beauty and sex appeal. At the age of 42 (in 2008), she was named the "Sexiest Black Woman" by Access Hollywood's "TV One Access" survey. Activism Along with Pierce Brosnan, Cindy Crawford, Jane Seymour, Dick Van Dyke, Téa Leoni, and Daryl Hannah, Berry successfully fought in 2006 against the Cabrillo Port Liquefied Natural Gas facility that was proposed off the coast of Malibu. Berry said, "I care about the air we breathe, I care about the marine life and the ecosystem of the ocean." In May 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the facility. Hasty Pudding Theatricals gave her its 2006 Woman of The Year award. Berry took part in a nearly 2,000-house cell-phone bank campaign for Barack Obama in February 2008. In April 2013, she appeared in a video clip for Gucci's "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to raise funds and awareness of women's issues in terms of education, health, and justice. In August 2013, Berry testified alongside Jennifer Garner before the California State Assembly's Judiciary Committee in support of a bill that would protect celebrities' children from harassment by photographers. The bill passed in September.