Halle Berry is a person.
Halle Berry . She won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic drama Monster 's Ball ( 2001 ) . As of 2017 , she is the only black woman to have won a Best Actress Academy Award . Berry was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood during the 2000s and has been involved in the production of several of the films in which she performed . Before becoming an actress , she started modeling and entered several beauty contests , finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986 .