HALLE BERRY: TALENTED, INTELLIGENT AND...
Halle Berry is a consummate actress, talented, intelligent, determined, and
elegantly beautiful.
Her natural charm heightens her appeal and further brightens any screen she happens to grace, whether motion picture or television.
In the recent HBO movie portraying the late Dorothy Dandridge -- the African-American actress of the 1950's who died tragically at age 45 -- Ms. Berry clearly demonstrates that she possesses a great deal of versatility.
However, her embodiment of Dorothy Dandridge seemed to lack the depth that it could have had.
Ms. Berry gives the impression she had chosen to focus on the role as a star-making vehicle, something she need not do.
She is at her strongest when she chooses to transform herself into a character who conceals knowledge of and exists in an inner hell, and is involved in a furious battle to remain or rise above it.
In Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever", (1991), Ms. Berry is Vivian, the crack head, sometime girl friend of Samuel L. Jackson's crack addicted character.
Vivian never recovers from her addiction, nor does she display any desire to do so.
Through Ms. Berry's effective interpretation of Vivian, she lets us in on the fact that Vivian has fallen so deep into the underworld in every sense of the word, there is no rising above it for her.
She understands that her will is completely dissipated.
Her strength has long since been drained, and what little she has left she uses to procure more drugs.
Ms. Berry is able to lay out all of these facets of her character with minimal screen time.
It is a powerful performance, so believable that some may not recognize Halle Berry as Vivian until Ms. Berry's name is listed in the end credits.
"Losing Isaiah, (1995), is nearly an echo of the "Jungle Fever" character for Ms. Berry.
Again, she is drug addicted.
Except this time she is a mother of an infant son who, in an act of desperation, throws the child into a trash dumpster.
Later the child is adopted by a white couple. A couple years pass when Khaila Richards, who has ascended from her hellish addiction, steps forth to reclaim her son.
Here, Ms. Berry shows the range of emotions she is capable of.
The manner in which Khaila longs for her child, her testimony in the court room scenes are heart rendering, stark contrasts to the hardened, desperate crack addict who would throw her infant into a trash dumpster.
"Boomerang", (1992), "The Program", (1993), and "Race the Moon", (1996), are somewhat similar roles for Ms. Berry in that she is a good and sweet young woman, who brings out the good qualities in marginally weak willed, young male characters.
Ms. Berry can play such a character with little or no effort since there is a sense that she is innately good and sweet.
But it was in "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", (1998) , that Ms. Berry bears her heart and soul as a young woman deeply in love with a drug addicted Frankie Lymon, an African American pop singer of the 1950's.
Zola Taylor goes as far as to sacrifice a fashionable Hollywood Hills home for the love of Lymon.
Despite all her efforts to lift him out of the evil haze that exists around Lymon, Zola fails.
Yet, Zola Taylor, the only female member of the 1950's pop singing group The Platters, remains passionately in love with Lymon; and her inability to resist him is nearly her doom.
It is evident that Ms. Berry thoroughly immersed herself into the role of Zola Taylor, one among numerous lovers that Lymon was involved with.
Her love scenes with Larenz Tate, who portrayed Frankie Lymon, are truly heartbreaking.
Zola is a woman who would give her life for a single moment in Lymon's arms. At times, not only in this film, but others such as "Boomerang", Ms. Berry's ability to emote so much of her character's feelings through her eyes brings to mind a youthful Olivia De Havilland.
In "Hold Back the Dawn", (1941), Ms. De Havilland was a naive, young school teacher hopelessly in love with gigolo Charles Boyer. After a few nominations Ms. De Havilland won an Oscar for "To Each His Own", (1946), as an unwed mother, lavishing love on her son as his aunt without revealing the truth. Ironically, a film that, in some ways, is similar to Ms. Berry's "Losing Isaiah".
Though Halle Berry's characterization of Dorothy Dandridge was a luminous one, it lacked the depth and conviction of her roles in "Jungle Fever", "Losing Isaish", and "Why Do Fools Fall In Love".
Not that the opportunity to do as much didn't exist. Dorothy Dandridge was a complex individual, a tragic, larger than life figure, who never quite understood the complexity of the times she lived in.
She kept her confusion to herself until it became too unwieldy for her to manage.
None of this comes through in Ms Berry's "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge".
Nonetheless, Halle Berry as producer and actress in the HBO production, is to be heartily applauded for finally bringing the Dorothy Dandridge story to the screen.
Many had tried, unsuccessfully, before her, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, and Jasmine Guy.
Still, Ms. Berry has nothing to prove as a movie star.
She is one, to use a cliche, of the highest magnitude.
She is worshipped as a star the world over.
And given the right circumstances, there is an Oscar with the name Halle Berry etched on it.
She needs only to consistently seek roles that would enable her to capitalize on her true gifts as an actress.
Jefferson D. Dunbar is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
