Halle Berry was forced to get rid of a dress once belonging to DOROTHY DANDRIDGE - because she was convinced the late actress's ghost was haunting her home.

Berry, who recently split from husband Eric Benet, acquired the frock while filming her EMMY-winning turn as the screen legend in the TV movie INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRIDGE, but she quickly handed it back after strange things began to happen around her Los Angeles home.

She says, "When I was making my Dorothy Dandridge movie, I know she was with me. I had one of her original dresses, which I kept for inspiration in my den covered in paper and plastic to protect it.

"One night I was at home with a friend drinking tea and we heard all this rustling noise. At first I thought it was just water dripping from the teapot, then I realised it was coming from the room, and the paper on the dress was rattling - all by itself! My friend and I both hauled a*s out of there so fast!

"Then other strange things happened in the house while I had that dress. I'd come home and the housekeeper would say she'd heard my vanity chair moving upstairs in my bathroom. And our fridge door would fly open by itself. I'm not kidding.

"When the film was over, I desperately wanted to keep her dress, but it had to go. And then everything was fine."

Dandridge died of a drug overdose in 1965 at the age of 41.

06/11/2003 09:49