OK, Halle’s been around awhile but I say she’s still got one of the best pair in the business. The breathtaking Halle Berry made history as the first black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar for 2002′s Monster’s Ball.
Before taking home her historic Academy Award, Berry’s career was a balance of blockbusters (Die Another Day, X-Men) and critically acclaimed dramas (Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge).
Despite her professional success and stunning beauty, she failed to find lasting love: she divorced Atlanta Braves baseball player David Justice and singer Eric Benét–both of whom cheated on her. But in her 40s, Berry fulfilled a lifelong dream when she welcomed her daughter Nahla with model Gabriel Aubry.
Halle Berry: Five Fun Facts
- A superstitious Halle Berry saved all of her negative pregnancy tests in drawer. “Don’t ask! I don’t know why, but I did,” she told Oprah Winfrey. “After about 35 tests, we finally got a positive test.”
- In her first, much-hyped topless scene in 2001′s Swordfish, Halle Berry lowers a book she’s reading to reveal she’s sunbathing without a top. The book? Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.
- Halle Berry has a record of on-set injuries. She fell off a horse and bruised her tailbone while filming the TV miniseries Queen in 1992; she choked on a fig during Die Another Day; she fractured a bone in her right arm filming Gothika; and a piece of equipment struck her in the head on the set of Catwoman.
- Halle Berry owns a tight pair of Mickey Mouse jeans she’s had since she was 15 years old. She regularly tries them on to test if she’s movie-star trim.
- While filming flying spins as her character Storm in X-Men, Halle Berry got motion sickness. “I upchucked and sprayed the crew,” Halle Berry told PEOPLE. “I just laughed because there’s nothing else you can do.”
