THISDAYonline

March 24 2002. Mark that day! After years of overlooking excellent black performances, the Academy Awards have finally given black performers the credit they deserve. Finally, their talent and hard work has been recognised by the predominantly white Hollywood establishment.

For the first time in Oscar's 73 years, two black thespians walked off the stage with awards for best actor and best actress: Denzel Washington for "Training Day" and Halle Berry for "Monster's Ball."

With her hands clutching her Oscar and her eyes overflowing with tears on Sunday night, Halle Berry dedicated her best actress award - the first for an African American woman in the Academy's 73-year history - to "every nameless, faceless woman of colour who now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.

"This moment is so much bigger than me," she said. "I am so honoured, and I thank the Academy for choosing me to be the vessel from which this blessing might flow."

Later the door was opened even wider for all non-white actors, not just women, when Denzel Washington took home the first best actor Oscar of his career.

Washington was only the second black man to claim the best Oscar. Sidney Poitier was the first with 1963's "Lilies of the Field."

By a beautiful coincidence, Poitier was on hand to receive a lifetime achievement award. "Forty years I have been chasing Sidney. They finally gave it to me, and they gave it to him the same night," Washington said with a smile, raising his statuette in Poitier's direction. Poitier stood and raised his in a toast to Washington.

For years black performers who have won Oscars, were relegated to the best supporting actor or actress. Berry and Washington have changed the script, but for what reasons?

Many critics have mentioned that Washington never received an Oscar for the positive roles he played. In 1989 he won the best supporting actor for "Glory." He was nominated in 1992 for the best actor award for his portrayal of civil rights activist, Malcolm X in the self-titled movie. In 1999 he was nominated again for the best actor award for "The Hurricane", a movie about a black boxer who was wrongly accused of murder.

Washington has finally won the coveted award for playing a corrupt cop in "Training Day."

Halle Berry's award was for her role as the black waitress wife of a convicted criminal on death row. "Monster's Ball" is an intense analysis of the inter-racial relationship between the black waitress and her husband's white warden.

Regardless of these observations, the euphoria and magnitude of the night cannot be tarnished or under estimated. Whether it marks a concerted effort by Hollywood to reflect the diverse culture of modern America, is yet to be seen.

When Halle Berry came backstage after winning her best actress Oscar even the press gave her a standing ovation for her historic victory as the first black female actor to win the award. "Will it change the industry?" she said. "I don't know. I hope this means they won't see our colour. That's what makes us so unique... I just hope we will start to be judged on our work, and not our skin."

Washington added, "There's been a lot of talk about race...this is an award to an actor."

A woman whose combination of talent, tenacity and beauty has made her one of Hollywood's busiest actors, Halle Berry has enjoyed a level of success that has come from years of hard work and her share of career pitfalls.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Berry's interest in show business started after she won the Miss Teen All American Pageant and subsequently became a model.

Born to an African American father and white mother on August 14, 1968, Berry was raised by her mother, a psychiatrist nurse after her parents' divorce. Berry won her first professional acting job on the TV series "Living Doll", and then appeared on "Knots Landing" before winning her first big screen role in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever". After a few disappointing roles, the tide changed for Berry in 1998 when she starred as Warren Beatty's love interest in "Bulworth". The following year Berry won even greater acclaim - and an Emmy and Golden Globe - for her role as tragic screen siren Dorothy Dandridge in the made for cable "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge".

Acclaim was not as forthcoming for her role in the cheesy thriller "Swordfish", probably because of Berry's nudity scene which Berry admits was a bit gratuitous. Even though there was another very revealing love scene in the movie that gave her the Oscar, "Monster's Ball", its intelligent portrayal of the difficult love affair between a black woman and a racist police warden, overshadowed it.

One of Hollywood's hottest leading men, Denzel Washington is an actor whose poise and sexy intelligence permeate whatever film he is in, be it socially conscious drama, comedy, or suspense thriller.

The son of a Pentecostal minister and a hairdresser, Washington was born in Mount Vernon, New York on December 28, 1954. His parents' professions shaped Washington's early ambition to go into show business: from his minister father he learned the power of performance, while hours spent in his mother's salon listening to stories gave him a love of storytelling. Unfortunately, when Washington was fourteen, his parents' marriage took a turn for the worse, and he and his older sister were sent away to boarding school so that they would not be exposed to their parents' eventual divorce.

Washington went on to college, attaining a B.A in Journalism from Fordham University in 1977. He still found time to pursue his interest in acting, and after graduation he went to San Francisco, where he won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theatre. Washington stayed with the ACT for a year, and, after his time there, he began acting in various television movies and made his film debut in the 1981 "Carbon Copy". Although he had a starring role as the illegitimate son of a rich white man, Washington didn't find real recognition until he joined the cast of the long-running TV series "St. Elsewhere" in 1982. He won critical raves and audience adoration for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Chandler, and he began to attract Hollywood notice. In 1987, he starred as anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's "Cry Freedom", and his powerful performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

Two years later, Washington won that award for his turn as an embittered yet courageous runaway slave in the Civil War drama "Glory". The honour effectively put him on the Hollywood A-List, a place Washington managed to retain even as he appeared in films of wildly varying quality over the subsequent years. Some of his more notable work came from his collaboration with director Spike Lee; over the course of the 1990s, Washington starred in three of his films, playing a jazz trumpeter in "Mo' Better Blues" (1990), the title role in Lee's epic 1992 biopic "Malcolm X" (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the convict father of a high school basketball star in "He Got Game" (1998).

Washington also turned in powerful performances in a number of other films, such as "Mississippi Masala" (1991), in which he played a man in love with an Indian woman; "Philadelphia" (1993), in which he portrayed a homophobic lawyer who takes on the cause of an AIDS-stricken man (Tom Hanks); and "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1994), which cast him as a 1940s private detective. Washington also proved himself believable as an action star, with the success of such thrillers as "The Pelican Brief" (1993), "Crimson Tide" (1995), and "The Siege" (1998) attesting to his capabilities. In 1999 he starred in the title role of Norman Jewison's "The Hurricane". Based on the true story of a boxer wrongly accused of murdering three people in 1966, the film featured stellar work by Washington as the wronged man, further demonstrating his remarkable capacity for telling a good story. His performance earned him a number of honours, including a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

After giving another strong performance as a high school football coach in Boaz Yakin's "Remember the Titans", Washington went against type to play a corrupt policeman in "Training Day", Antoine Fuqua's gritty cop drama. Washington surprised both audiences and critics with his change of direction, although more than a few noted this change of direction made him a more compelling screen presence than ever in addition to earning him an Oscar nod.

"I just hope that this last night marks a point where the performances of people of colour in front or behind the camera aren't negated," said filmmaker Spike Lee, after the event. "Everybody's happy right now, but it could be like another drought for another 40 years. So we'll see what happens."