Halle Berry Biography
A former teenage beauty queen, Halle Berry traded a successful modeling career for acting in the late 1980s. After high school, this youngest daughter of a black father and white mother, entered the Miss Teen Ohio Pageant and won, representing the state at the Miss Teen All-American Pageant. An over-achiever since she was a child, Berry attempted to add another crown as Miss Ohio in the Miss USA competition but placed as first runner-up. After finishing in the top five at the Miss World pageant, she moved into modeling, working first in the Chicago area and later in NYC. By 1989, Berry had begun the transition to performing when she was appropriately cast as a teenage model in the short-lived ABC sitcom “Living Dolls”. Guest work in other comedy series followed before she was able to convince Spike Lee she could handle the demanding role of a crack addict in his “Jungle Fever” (1991).