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Halle Berry: African American
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Halle Berry, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 14, 1966, began her career in beauty pageants, winning the Miss Teen All-American Pageant in 1986. She went on to modeling, and then turned to television work in "Living Dolls" and "Knots Landing."
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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 overachiever since she was a child, Berry attempted to add another crown as Miss Ohio in the Miss USA… See Full Halle Berry Biography
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Her highschool boyfriend entered her into the Miss Ohio Teen beauty pageant and Halle ended the night wearing the winners crown. From there, it was like a whirlwind. She won, Miss Teen All American, Miss USA, and Miss World. Not one to be easily sidetracked, she continued her education at Cleveland's Cuyahoga Community College studying broadcast journalism. The glamorous life started calling her and she realized that her inner talents could be used more effectively as a model. She was right on target!
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Halle Maria Berry, born on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio, is a notable American actress. Her father, Jerome Berry, is an African American who was a former hospital attendant, while her mother, Judith Ann Hawkins, is a white English-born who used to work as a psychiatric nurse. When she was four years old her parents divorced and from that time Berry, who has an older sister, Heidi, lived with her lovely mother.
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A boyfriend enters her into her first beauty contest, and Berry storms onto the pageant scene, winning Miss Teen All-American. "We didn't have a lot, so initially I saw dollar signs," she tells PEOPLE. "But then I felt really empowered after winning." In 1986, after being crowned Miss Ohio USA, Berry comes in second place in the Miss USA contest and sixth in Miss World. But "I wasn't the consummate pageant girl," Berry later says to PEOPLE of her tiara days.
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Fortunately for Berry, her subsequent onscreen work removed the spotlight from her legal troubles; that same year, she starred as Storm in Bryan Singer's hugely successful adaptation of The X-Men. Working alongside a cast that included Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, and Anna Paquin, Berry was hailed for her work as the first African-American comic book heroine on the screen. Acclaim was not quite as forthcoming for her work opposite John Travolta in Dominic Sena's cheesy thriller Swordfish, which touted itself as the first movie to feature Berry baring her breasts. Unfortunately, it didn't allow for equal exploitation of the talents that Berry possessed above her collarbone.
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