Halle Berry is an American actress born on August 14, 1966, in Cleveland, Ohio. Berry started her career as a beauty queen in Miss Teen All American and Miss Ohio USA in 1985. She went on to win the Miss USA World Beauty Pageant.
By 1989, Berry made a career switch to acting and instantly landed a role on an ABC sitcom called Living Dolls, and made 12 episode appearances. She also landed a role in the Spike Lee film, Jungle Fever, in 1991.
Soon, the 54-year-old became one of the leading actresses in Hollywood and earned her first major paycheck of $1 million when she starred in Executive Decision. She also made an appearance in four X-Men movies.
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As her profile went up in Hollywood, so were her paychecks. According to Celebrity Net Worth, she was offered $2 million to star in Swordfish after agreeing to go topless in a scene. However, she later refused to go topless, compelling Warner Brothers to up her salary by $500,000 to complete the full topless scene, bringing her total payday to $2.5 million.
In the James Bond movie Die Another Day, Berry reportedly earned $4 million and also earned $6 million for her role in 2003’s Gothika. Her biggest paycheck came in 2014 when she was paid $14 million (valued at $19 million).
Since then, Berry has regularly earned between $10-12 million per major movie role, Celebrity Net Worth reports, making her one of the highest-paid actresses in the world. The platform estimates her net worth to be $90 million.
Aside from making money from movies, Berry also makes money from endorsement deals. In 1996, she signed her first Revlon endorsement deal and renewed the same in 2004. According to Celebrity Net Worth, her paycheck from Revlon increased to $5 million from $3 million after she won the Academy Award. She now makes $10 million from Revlon alone.
Berry was married to baseball player David Justice but they got divorced in 1997. She later married musician Eric Benét but the marriage also collapsed in 2005. She subsequently dated Canadian model, Gabriel Aubry, from 2005 to 2010. Also, she married Olivier Martinez from 2013 to 2016. She has two children from her past relationship with Aubry and Martinez. Currently, Berry is dating musician Van Hunt.
The actress was born to Judith Ann, a psychiatric nurse, and Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. According to The Famous People, she is of mixed ancestry. Her mother was of English and German origin, while her father was an African American. She has an elder sister.
She went to Bedford High School and proceeded to Cuyahoga Community College to study broadcast journalism.
Berry has several awards to her credit. She has won Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG awards. She also became only African American to win an Academy Award for “Best Actress”.
