Her modeling and pageant placements eventually led to her first weekly TV series, 1989’s “Living Dolls,” where she quickly established a reputation for her on-set tenacity, preferring to “live” her roles and remaining in character even when the cameras stopped rolling.
But Berry finally broke into lasting fame when, after multiple failed attempts, she finally convinced a young director to put her into a movie as a grungy homeless woman. She reportedly refused to bathe for several days before starting work on her role as a crack addict in Spike Lee’s 1991 criticially-acclaimed picture Jungle Fever.
