Halle Maria Berry is an American actress. She began her career as a model and beauty contestant becoming Miss Ohio in 1986, runner-up in Miss USA 1986 and placing sixth in Miss World 1986. Her early film roles include Boomerang (1992), The Flintstones (1994) and Bulworth (1998). She later produced and starred in the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
For her performance of a struggling widow in the romantic drama Monster's Ball (2001), she became the only African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, and the first woman of color. Later roles include Storm in the X-Men film series (2000–2014), a villain in Swordfish (2001), Bond girl Jinx in Die Another Day (2002), a psychiatrist in Gothika (2003), and the title role in the much-derided Catwoman (2004). 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.