Halle Berry Honors Dorothy Dandridge On Her Birthday: ‘A True Queen’
Halle Berry hit up Instagram on Saturday to celebrate iconic thespian Dorothy Dandridge on her birthday. While the Oscar winner has recently been using social media to flaunt her chiseled body and the sweat that was spilled to create her enviable figure, Halle shifted the focus on November 9 to call out the person to whom she partially owes her career, and the woman for whom she considers to be a “true queen.”
No doubt, the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Carmen Jones opened show business doors for the first African-American to win a Best Actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball. In fact, when Halle was offered the role of Dorothy in the television movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, she knew she would want to do this supreme actress proud.
“When I was a young girl, she was someone who influenced me. She was the first actor or public persona that I identified with,” Halle said in a 2010 interview with the American Film Institute (AFI).
Halle pointed out that their lives were “filled with parallels,” starting with the fact that the two women from two different generations were born in the same hospital and who both grew up in Ohio before heading to Hollywood.
“Her life, in many ways had been my life. Her struggle has been my struggle. So it was something that sort of fit on my body like a used suit. I understood it. It felt really comfortable.”
Among Dorothy’s many fine qualities, Halle appreciates her tenacity and her grace, both of which she mentioned in the caption of her Instagram post devoted to the groundbreaking Hollywood star who died at the age of 42-years-old in 1965. Halle was born the next year.
Halle’s 5.7 million Instagram fans seemed eager to interact with the contemporary actress regarding her post about Dorothy Dandridge on the date of her birth. Within an hour of the star’s stunning portrait being shared, more than 28,000 fans and followers liked the social media upload, while about 400 admirers wrote in the comments section.
“You did a marvelous job in her biopic Halle!” stated one fan, who added a clapping hands emoji to her remark.
“Such a beautiful woman she was,” remarked another Instagram user about Dorothy.
“You did a good job cause I cried [through] most of the movie,” said a third admirer.
“I love her. You’re her doppelgänger! And she shares the same birthday with my mother and my younger sister,” mused a fourth fan, who added a clapping emoji, a red heart emoji, and a star emoji to the comment.
