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Geena Davis
Davis at the World Maker Faire in New York on September 22, 2013
Born	Virginia Elizabeth Davis (1956-01-21) January 21, 1956 (age 68) Wareham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	New England College Boston University (B.A., Drama, 1979)
Occupation(s)	Actress, producer, writer, athlete, model
Years active	1978–present
Height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Spouses	Richard Emmolo ​ ​(m. 1982; div. 1983)​ Jeff Goldblum ​ ​(m. 1987; div. 1990)​ Renny Harlin ​ ​(m. 1993; div. 1998)​
Partner	Reza Jarrahy (2001–2017)
Children	3

Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an American actress, film producer, writer, former model, and former archer. She is known for her roles in The Fly (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), The Accidental Tourist (1988), Thelma & Louise (1991), A League of Their Own (1992), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), and Stuart Little (1999). For her performance in The Accidental Tourist, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and for Thelma & Louise, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 2005, Davis won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her role in Commander in Chief. She has since portrayed the recurring role of Dr. Nicole Herman in Grey's Anatomy (2014–2015, 2018), and also starred as Regan MacNeil-Angela Rance in the first season of the horror television series The Exorcist (2017), on Fox.

Early life

Davis was born January 21, 1956, in Wareham, Massachusetts. Her mother, Lucille (née Cook; June 19, 1919 – November 15, 2001), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis (November 7, 1913 – April 2, 2009), was a civil engineer and church deacon; her parents were both from small towns in Vermont. She has an older brother named Danforth ("Dan"). At an early age, she became interested in music. She learned piano and flute and played organ well enough as a teenager to serve as an organist at her Congregationalist church in Wareham. Davis attended Wareham High School and was an exchange student in Sandviken, Sweden, becoming fluent in Swedish. Enrolling at New England College, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from Boston University in 1979. Following her education, Davis served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor until signing with New York's Zoli modeling agency.

Career

Beginnings (1982–1987)

Davis was working as a model when she was cast by director Sydney Pollack in his film Tootsie (1982) as a soap opera actress. She followed the role with the part of Wendy Killian in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill, which aired from June 1983 to March 1984. She also wrote the Buffalo Bill episode titled "Miss WBFL." During the run of the series, in 1983, Davis also appeared as Grace Fallon in an episode of Knight Rider titled "K.I.T.T. the Cat". Her television credits from the mid-1980s also include one episode of Riptide, three episodes of Family Ties, and an episode of Remington Steele. This was followed by a series of her own, Sara, which lasted 13 episodes.

In Fletch (1985), an action comedy, Davis appeared as the collegue of a Los Angeles Times undercover reporter trying to expose a drug trafficking on the beaches of Los Angeles, opposite Chevy Chase. In 1985, she also starred in the horror comedy Transylvania 6-5000, as a nymphomaniac vampire Odette, alongside future husband Jeff Goldblum; they would both reunite professionally in the sci-fi thriller The Fly (1986), loosely based on George Langelaan's 1957 short story of the same name and in which Davis portrayed a science journalist and the love interest of an eccentric scientist. Those three films were all commercial successes and helped to establish her as an actress.

International stardom (1988–1993)

Director Tim Burton cast Davis in his film Beetlejuice (1988), as one half of a recently deceased young couple who become ghosts haunting their former house, alongside Alec Baldwin, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder. The film made US$73.7 million from a budget of US$15 million, and Davis' performance and the overall film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Davis took on the role of an animal hospital employee and dog trainer with a sickly son in the drama The Accidental Tourist (1988), opposite William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. Critic Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars out of four, wrote: "Davis, as Muriel, brings an unforced wackiness to her role in scenes like the one where she belts out a song while she's doing the dishes. But she is not as simple as she sometimes seems ". The film was a critical and commercial success, and she received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her appearance in it. She would work again with Jeff Goldblum in the sci-fi film Earth Girls Are Easy (also 1988).

Davis appeared as the girlfriend of a man who, dressed as a clown, robs a bank in midtown Manhattan, in the comedy Quick Change (1990), based on a book of the same name by Jay Cronley, and a remake of the 1985 French film Hold-Up starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Despite modest box office returns for the film, Chicago Tribune found the lead actors to be "funny and creative while keeping their characters life-size". Davis next starred with Susan Sarandon in Ridley Scott's road film Thelma & Louise (1991), both playing friends who embark on a road trip with unforeseen consequences. A critical and commercial success, the film is considered a classic, as it influenced other films and artistic works and became a landmark of feminist film. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role.

In 1992, Davis starred alongside Madonna and Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own as a baseball player on an all-women's team. It reached number one on the box-office, became the tenth highest-grossing film of the year in North America, and earned her a Best Actress Golden Globe Award nomination. She played a television reporter in the comedy Hero (also 1992), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia. While that film flopped at the box office, Roger Ebert felt that Davis was "bright and convincing as the reporter (her best line, after surviving the plane crash, is shouted through an ambulance door: "This is my story! I did the research!")".

Downturn and hiatus (1994–2009)

By the mid and late 1990s, Davis' film career had became less noteworthy and critical acclaim had waned. In a 2016 interview with Vulture, she recalled: "Film roles really did start to dry up when I got into my 40s. If you look at IMDB, up until that age, I made roughly one film a year. In my entire 40s, I made one movie, Stuart Little. I was getting offers, but for nothing meaty or interesting like in my 30s. I'd been completely ruined and spoiled. I mean, I got to play a pirate captain! I got to do every type of role, even if the movie failed." In 1994's Angie, Davis played an office worker who lives in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York and dreams of a better life. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who felt she could have been better in this movie or another set in Brooklyn, and was a commercial failure. In her other 1994 release, Speechless, Davis reunited with Michael Keaton to play insomniac writers who fall in love until they realize that both are writing speeches for rival candidates in a New Mexico election. Despite negative reviews and modest box office returns, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for her performance.

Davis teamed up with her husband at that time, director Renny Harlin, for the films Cutthroat Island (1995) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), with Harlin hoping that they would turn her into an action star. While The Long Kiss Goodnight managed to become a moderate success, Cuttthroat Island flopped critically and commercially and is credited to be a contributing factor in the demise of Davis as a bankable star. She divorced Harlin in 1998 and took an "unusually long" two years off to reflect on her career, according to The New York Times. She appeared as Eleanor Little in the well-received family comedy Stuart Little (1999), a role she reprised in Stuart Little 2 (2002) and again in Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild (2005).

Davis starred in the sitcom The Geena Davis Show, which aired for one season on ABC during the 2000–01 U.S. television season. She went on to star in the ABC television series Commander in Chief, portraying the first female president of the United States. While this role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2006, the series was cancelled after its first season; Davis admitted she was "devastated" by the its cancellation in a 2016 interview. "I still haven't gotten over it. I really wanted it to work. It was on Tuesday nights opposite House, which wasn't ideal. But we were the best new show that fall. Then, in January, we were opposite American Idol. They said, 'The ratings are going to suffer, so we should take you off the air for the entire run of Idol, and bring it back in May. I put a lot of time and effort into getting it on another network, too, but it didn't work". She was also nominated for an Emmy Award and a SAG Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series. Also in 2006, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award.

Davis was the only American actor to be cast in the Australian-produced film Accidents Happen (2009), portraying the foul-mouthed and strict mother of an accident-prone teenage boy. Written by Brian Carbee and based on his own childhood and adolescence, the film received a limited theatrical release and mixed reviews from critics. Variety found it to be "led by a valiant Geena Davis", despite a "script that mistakes abuse for wit". In 2009, she also starred as a psychiatrist in the miniseries Coma, based on the 1977 novel Coma by Robin Cook and the subsequent 1978 film Coma.

Continued roles in television (2010s)

Davis played a powerful female movie executive in In a World... (2013), the directorial debut of Lake Bell. In 2014, she provided her voice for the English version of When Marnie Was There, and played the recurring role of Dr. Nicole Herman, an attending fetal surgeon with a life-threatening brain tumor, during the 11th season of Grey's Anatomy. Davis appeared as the mother of a semi-famous television star in the comedy Me Him Her (2016). In the television series The Exorcist, based on the 1973 film of the same name, Davis took on the role of grown-up Regan MacNeil, who has renamed herself Angela Rance to find peace and anonymity from her ordeal as a child. The Exorcist was a success with critics and audiences.

In 2017, Davis starred in the film adaptation Marjorie Prime, alongside Jon Hamm, playing the daughter of an 85-year old experiencing the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, and appeared as the imaginary god of a heavyset 13-year-old girl in the comedy Don't Talk to Irene. On her role in the latter film, Variety remarked: "There’s no arguing the preternatural coolness of Geena Davis —a fact celebrated in self-conscious fashion by Don’t Talk to Irene, a familiar type of coming-of-age film whose most distinguishing feature is the presence of the actress". She returned to Grey's Anatomy in 2018, reprising the role of Dr. Nicole Herman in the show's 15th season.

Personal life

Marriages and family

Davis has been married four times. Previously to Richard Emmolo (1982–83); actor Jeff Goldblum (1987–90), with whom she starred in three films, Transylvania 6-5000, The Fly, and Earth Girls Are Easy; and Renny Harlin (1993–98), who directed two films in which she starred, Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight.

On September 1, 2001, Davis married Dr. Reza Jarrahy (b. 1971). They have three children: a daughter, Alizeh (born April 2002), and fraternal twin sons, Kaiis and Kian (born May 2004). On May 8, 2018, Jarrahy filed for divorce from Davis; listing their date of separation as November 15, 2017. Davis responded by filing a petition in which she claimed that she and Jarrahy were never legally married.

Activism

Davis is a supporter of the Women's Sports Foundation and an advocate for Title IX, an Act of Congress focusing on equality in sports opportunities, now expanded to prohibit gender discrimination in United States' educational institutions.

In 2004, while watching children's television programs and videos with her daughter, Davis noticed an imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. Davis went on to sponsor the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children's entertainment (resulting in four discrete studies, including one on children's television) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, showed that there were nearly three males to every one female character in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students analyzed. In 2005, Davis teamed up with the non-profit group, Dads and Daughters, to launch a venture dedicated to balancing the number of male and female characters in children's television and movie programming.

Davis launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007. The Institute's first focus is an on-the-ground program that works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children and to reduce stereotyping of females by the male-dominated industry. It seeks to address inequality in Hollywood. For her work in this field she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in May 2009.

In 2011, Davis became one of a handful of celebrities attached to USAID and Ad Council's FWD campaign, an awareness initiative tied to that year's East Africa drought. She joined Uma Thurman, Chanel Iman and Josh Hartnett in television and internet ads to "forward the facts" about the crisis. In 2015, Davis launched an annual film festival to be held in Bentonville, Arkansas, to highlight diversity in film, accepting films that prominently feature minorities and women in the cast and crew. The Bentonville Film Festival took place from May 5–9, 2015, and began accepting submissions on January 15.

Sports

In July 1999, Davis was one of 300 women who vied for a semifinals berth in the U.S. Olympic archery team, to participate in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. She placed 24th of 300 and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition. In August 1999, Davis then stated that she was not an athlete growing up and that her introduction to archery was in 1997, two years before her tryouts.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Awards and nominations

References

1. "New England College to Receive $3 Million Gift", New England College news office
2. ^ Sandberg, Bryn Elise, "BOSTON U: HOLLYWOOD’S SECRET FEMALE TRAINING GROUND: Dozens of top execs and talents call BU their alma mater, as alumnae from Geena Davis and her college roommate Nina Tassler to Nancy Dubuc gather to honor the college that puts the ‘B’ in showbiz", The Hollywood Reporter, December 2014. (reproduced on Boston University College of Arts and Sciences website)
3. Winfrey, Oprah (December 2006). "Oprah Interviews Geena Davis". O. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
4. Zauzmer, Emily (September 5, 2018). "Geena Davis Says She Was Never Legally Married". People.com. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
5. Andrews, Robert (October 30, 2003). "The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations". Penguin UK. Retrieved March 15, 2017 – via Google Books.
6. Publications, Europa (January 1, 2003). "The International Who's Who 2004". Psychology Press. Retrieved March 15, 2017 – via Google Books.
7. "Geena Davis biography and filmography - Geena Davis movies". Retrieved March 15, 2017.
8. Though some sources list her birth year as 1957 Davis seemed to acknowledge being 48 in 2004 as People magazine had asserted in previous issues. See: Mailbag
9. ^ "OLYMPICS; Geena Davis Zeros In With Bow and Arrows". NY Times. August 6, 1999. Archived from the original on June 12, 2015. Retrieved December 24, 2015. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
10. "Editor's notes: Fish out of water" April 8, 2009, South Coast Today
11. Geena Davis biography. Film Reference.com
12. "Editor's notes: Fish out of water". Archived from the original on July 16, 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
13. ^ Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2000
14. "Trends in Photography". Los Angeles Times. July 14, 1989.
15. "Davis bio at Yahoo Movies". Movies.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
16. ^ Buffalo Bill at IMDb
17. "Fletch". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 10, 2009.
18. "Transylvania 6-5000". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved April 8, 2011.
19. Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p260
20. Mark Salisbury (2000). Burton on Burton: Revised Edition. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-20507-0.
21. Beetlejuice at Rotten Tomatoes.com; accessed on May 5, 2007.
22. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-accidental-tourist-1989
23. "Quick Change (1990): Connections". IMDb. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
24. "Quick Change". Rotten Tomatoes. July 13, 1990. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
25. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/quick-change/Film?oid=1054868
26. "A League of Their Own". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 11, 2014.
27. Joe Brown (July 3, 1992). "'A League of Their Own' (PG)". Washington Post. Retrieved December 24, 2015.
28. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hero-1992
29. ^ https://www.vulture.com/2016/05/geena-davis-on-fighting-for-more-roles-for-women.html
30. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/angie
31. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/20/movies/film-geena-davis-is-back-weaklings-step-aside.html?pagewanted=all
32. Stuart Little at IMDb
33. "A Star Vehicle Sputters: CBS Cancels 'Bette'". The New York Times. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
34. "Geena Davis Would Love to Be Part of a 'Beetlejuice' Sequel". BloodyDisgusting.
35. Lucy Award, past recipients Archived August 20, 2011, at WebCite WIF web site
36. https://variety.com/2010/film/reviews/accidents-happen-1117942642/
37. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/09/entertainment/la-et-mn-lake-bell-on-the-soapbox-moment-in-her-in-a-world-20130809
38. "Geena Davis on Playing Opposite Jon Hamm in MARJORIE PRIME, 'I'm Excited!'". Broadway World. October 11, 2015. Retrieved December 24, 2015.
39. https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/dont-talk-to-irene-review-1202711091/
40. https://deadline.com/2018/04/greys-anatomy-geena-davis-returns-reprise-dr-nicole-herman-1202372822/
41. Silverman, Stephen M. (September 5, 2001). "Geena Davis a Bride for Fourth Time". People.com. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
42. "Mothers Over the Age of 40: PEOPLE". People magazine. April 19, 2002. Retrieved August 21, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
43. Blash, Margi (May 31, 2004). "Hollywood Baby Boom". People.com. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
44. "Geena Davis' Husband Files For Divorce". TMZ.com. May 8, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
45. Zauzmer, Emily (September 5, 2018). "Geena Davis Says She Was Never Legally Married". People.com. Retrieved September 6, 2018.
46. "Actor Geena Davis targets women-s sports". Team USA. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
47. "Women's Sports Foundation: Celebrity Supporters". Look to the Stars. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
48. Smith, Stacy L.; Choueiti, Marc; Pieper, Katherine; Gillig, Traci; Lee, Carmen; DeLuca, Dylan. "Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014".
49. Burch, Ariel Z (March 15, 2008). "Geena Davis: In a league of her own". Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
50. "Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media". Thegeenadavisinstitute.org. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
51. "The aftermath of the Weinstein scandal". The Economist.
52. "List of 2009 Bates honorands at Bates College web site". Bates.edu. April 9, 2009. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
53. "Dr. Jill Biden Joins USAID and Ad Council to Debut FWD Campaign for the Crisis in the Horn of Africa". PR Newswire. October 26, 2011.
54. "Geena Davis Launching Bentonville Film Festival to Push for Diversity in Film". Variety. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
55. "Geena Davis still causing commotion in archery". CNN. September 21, 1999. Retrieved May 3, 2010.
56. Litsky, Frank (August 6, 1999). "OLYMPICS; Geena Davis Zeros in With Bow and Arrows". The New York Times. Retrieved May 3, 2010.

External links

• Geena Davis at IMDb
• Geena Davis at the TCM Movie Database
• Template:Amg name
• Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Template:Worldcat id
• Geena Davis collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Geena Davis Video produced by Makers: Women Who Make America

• 1956 births
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses
• Actresses from Massachusetts
• American activists
• American female archers
• American Congregationalists
• Female models from Massachusetts
• American feminists
• American film actresses
• Film producers from Massachusetts
• American television actresses
• Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (television) winners
• Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners
• Boston University College of Fine Arts alumni
• Feminist artists
• Living people
• Mensans
• New England College alumni
• People from Wareham, Massachusetts
• American voice actresses
• American women film producers