Halle Berry is named ‘sexiest woman alive’

Halle Berry is named ‘sexiest woman alive’

LOS ANGELES — Alongside a photo spread that shows her in little more than a T-shirt, Halle Berry talks about being the sexiest woman alive, a title Esquire magazine gives her in its November issue.

“I don’t know exactly what it means, but being 42 and having just had a baby, I think I’ll take it,” says Berry, who gave birth to her daughter, Nahla, in March.

“Sexiness is a state of mind — a comfortable state of being,” she says. “It’s about loving yourself in your most unlovable moments.”

But Berry, who won an Oscar for her role in “Monster’s Ball,” can’t claim the sexiest-woman honor all to herself. “I share this title with every woman, because every woman is a nominee for it at any moment,” she says.

Artist knows value of a dollar bill

NEW YORK — With the financial meltdown leaving many Americans wondering what a dollar is worth, one New York City artist has an answer — zero.

Painter and printmaker Laura Gilbert is passing out signed and numbered prints of the “Zero Dollar,” which looks like a dollar bill except it has zeros in place of ones.

Gilbert will be distributing 10,000 of the fake greenbacks in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday to call attention to the economic crisis gripping the nation. She says the artwork is meant to be a statement about “the destructive role of many financial institutions, inflation, and the decline of U.S. currency to the point of seeming worthlessness.”

Today’s birthdays

Actor Paul Hogan is 69. Actor-comedian Chevy Chase is 65. Author R.L. Stine (“Goosebumps”) is 65. Actress Sigourney Weaver is 59. Singer Robert “Kool” Bell of Kool and the Gang is 58. Comedian Darrell Hammond (“Saturday Night Live”) is 53. Actress Stephanie Zimbalist is 52. Singer CeCe Winans is 44. Actor Matt Damon is 38. Actor Nick Cannon (“The Nick Cannon Show,” “Drumline”) is 28. Actor Angus T. Jones (“Two and a Half Men”) is 15.