Halle Berry sheds light on race and the silver screen

Halle Berry says Princeton changed her life.

"If you haven't heard, I was in a car accident this year," the Emmy award-winning starlet said Friday night in McCosh 50. "It was the darkest, scariest time of my life, when I was feeling unworthy, when my sense of self was challenged, when I was questioning who I was.

"There wasn't a day when I wasn't crying or down on my knees praying," Berry said. "Then I got a beautifully written letter from Princeton University asking me to be the keynote speaker. The long, dark tunnel I was in suddenly had a light at the end of it."

Berry was the keynote speaker for this weekend's conference titled "Imitating Life: Women, Race and Film, 1934-2000."

"That invitation reminded me who I was, and that I could be proud of that person because Princeton wanted me to come speak," Berry said to the packed crowd made up predominantly of professors and experts in the field.

The two-day conference — which included a movie screening Friday and three panel discussions Saturday — focused on the role of African-American women in Hollywood by examining the two versions of the film "Imitating Life."

The movie, which was first made in 1934 and remade in 1959, was the first mainstream film to tackle the issue of race.

"We wanted Halle Berry to start off our conference because she is the descendant of the early black women in films and she has shown a special interest in fighting racism in the film industry," former director of the African-American studies program Nell Painter said. "She has spoken beautifully on this topic before."

In her speech, Berry discussed not only what it took to get to Hollywood, but "what it takes to stay" by narrating several personal anecdotes.

After listing five traits, including courage and integrity, which black actresses need to possess to get started, the 34-year-old actress said, "Once you have all that stuff, such as talent and drive, the industry does not know what to do with you. Because the industry heads don't have what you have, there is no place for you. That's why many of us get jaded, frustrated and give up."

"I've been told I was too pretty for one role, not black enough for another, or too black. What's a girl to do?" said Berry, who was the executive producer of and starred in the 1999 HBO special, "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge."

The special, which took Berry six years to produce, told the story of the first African-American woman nominated for an academy award who later committed suicide because of the discrimination she faced in Hollywood.

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"Black people have to stay and fight for what they know is right and to go after what they know to be truth," she said. "They have to fight for roles that were not written for black people for there to be real change."

Berry, known for her candid attitude toward her personal life, shared her struggles to be taken seriously as an actress and her decisions as to what roles to pursue.

"You gain and learn from every decision that you make. But these decisions take us further as a black people," Berry said, discussing her current dilemma on whether to appear nude in her next film, "Swordfish," with John Travolta. "Maybe you don't want to see me naked, but it is not about that. It's about what I want and whether this role will challenge me.

"What is more important is that I have become one of the highest paid black actresses ever. It is important that this role was written for a white woman," she said. "A role like this could take us to another level."

"Then I talked to the director, and told him that I don't have to be nude," the actress said to a round of applause.

The event was sponsored by the University's Program in African-American Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

The first panel on Saturday, led by Columbia University professor Ann Douglas — who is the author of "The Feminization of American Culture" — covered issues such as friendships across color lines and female entrepreneurship, both of which were themes of the film "Imitating Life."

Producer and director Charles Burnett examined how the film could be remade in the 21st century during the second panel discussion. The third panel, led by University of Warwick professor Richard Dyer and UCLA professor Valerie Smith discussed the screen portrayal of African Americans.