Berry was born Maria Halle Berry in Cleveland, Ohio,[1] on August 14, 1966,[2] to Judith Ann (née Hawkins), an English immigrant from Liverpool,[3] and Jerome Jesse Berry, an African-American man.[1] Her name was legally changed to Halle Maria Berry at the age of five.[4] Her parents selected her middle name from Halle's Department Store, which was then a local landmark in Cleveland.[1] Berry's mother worked as a psychiatric nurse, and her father worked in the same hospital as an attendant in the psychiatric ward; he later became a bus driver.[1] They divorced when Berry was four years old, and she and her older sister Heidi Berry-Henderson[5] were raised exclusively by their mother.[1] She has been estranged from her father since childhood,[1][6] noting in 1992 that she did not even know if he was still alive.[5] Her father was abusive to her mother, and Berry has recalled witnessing her mother being beaten daily, kicked down stairs, and hit in the head with a wine bottle.