Geena Davis Biography

Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist. She is known for her roles in Stuart Little, The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Accidental Tourist, for which she won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2005, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Television Series Drama for her role in Commander in Chief.

Early life

Davis was born in Wareham, Massachusetts. Her mother, Lucille (née Cook), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis, was a civil engineer and church deacon; her parents had both been from small towns in Vermont. She has a 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 eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from Boston University in 1979. Davis is a member of Mensa, a social organization whose members are in the top 2% of intelligence as measured by an IQ test entrance exam.

Career

Following her education, Davis served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor until signing with New York's Zoli modeling agency in 1979. Davis auditioned for roles in many popular movies, including The Terminator's Sarah Connor, which went to Linda Hamilton. She 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 Killain in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill, which aired from June 1983 to March 1984. She also wrote the Buffalo Bill episode entitled "Miss WBFL." During the run of Buffalo Bill, in 1983, Davis also appeared as Grace Fallon in an episode of Knight Rider entitled "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 thirteen episodes.

After roles in Fletch, The Fly, and Beetlejuice, Davis received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her appearance in The Accidental Tourist (1988), and a Best Actress nomination for her role in Thelma & Louise (1991). Davis replaced Debra Winger in the role of Dottie in A League of Their Own (1992), and received a Best Actress Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance. She then co-starred in Hero alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia.

Davis then teamed up with then-husband, director Renny Harlin, for the films Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight (both 1996). She and Harlin co-produced the films. Davis was nominated for the Saturn Awards for her performances as Samantha/Charlie in The Long Kiss Goodnight, and as Eleanor Little in Stuart Little (1999), a role she reprised in 2002 and again in 2005.

In 2000"2001, Davis starred in the short-lived sitcom The Geena Davis Show. In early 2004 she guest-starred as Grace Adler's sister, Janet, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. She went on to star in the ABC television series Commander in Chief, portraying the first female President of the United States. This role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2006, and she also was 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 [[Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards#THE LUCY AWARD|Lucy Award]].

She starred in the Australian-produced, American-set Accidents Happen, which was released in April 2010.

Personal life

Davis was married to Richard Emmolo (March 25, 1982 " February 26, 1983); actor Jeff Goldblum, with whom she starred in three films, Transylvania 6-5000, The Fly and Earth Girls Are Easy (1987 " 1990); and Renny Harlin, who directed her in Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1993 " 1998).

On September 1, 2001, Davis married Reza Jarrahy, an Iranian-American plastic surgeon. At age 46, Davis gave birth to their daughter Alizeh Keshvar (born April 10, 2002). At age 48, she had twin boys, Kian William Jarrahy and Kaiis Steven (born May 6, 2004).

Activism

Davis is fronting the Women's Sports Foundation campaign Geena Takes Aim in support of 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 what she thought was 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 4 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 3 males to every 1 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 TV 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.

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 TV and internet ads to "forward the facts" about the crisis.

Sports

Davis has stated that she was not an athlete growing up, and that her introduction to archery was in 1997, two years prior to her tryouts.

In July 1999, Davis was one of 300 women who vied for a semifinals berth in the US 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.

Filmography

List of film credits

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1982	Tootsie	April Page
1985	Fletch	Larry
1985	Transylvania 6-5000	Odette
1986	'	Veronica Quaife	Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actress
1988	Beetlejuice	Barbara Maitland
1988	Earth Girls Are Easy	Valerie Gail
1988	'	Muriel Pritchett	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1990	Quick Change	Phyllis Potter
1991	Thelma & Louise	Thelma Yvonne Dickinson
1992	'	Dottie Hinson
1992	Hero	Gale Gayley
1993	Princess Scargo and the Birthday Pumpkin	Narrator (voice)	short subject
1994	Angie	Angie Scacciapensieri
1994	Speechless	Julia Mann
1995	Cutthroat Island	Morgan Adams
1996	'	Samantha Caine / Charly Baltimore
1999	Stuart Little	Mrs. Eleanor Little	Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2002	Stuart Little 2	Mrs. Eleanor Little
2006	Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild	Mrs. Eleanor Little	voice
2009	Accidents Happen	Gloria Conway

List of television credits

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983"1984	Buffalo Bill	Wendy Killian	26 episodes
1983	Knight Rider	Grace Fallon	Episode: "K.I.T.T. The Cat"
1984	Family Ties	Karen Nicholson	3 episodes
1984	Riptide	Dr. Melba Bozinsky	Episode: "Raiders of the Lost Sub"
1985	Sara	Sara McKenna	13 episodes
1985	Secret Weapons	Tamara Reshevsky/Brenda	Television movie
1985	Remington Steele	Sandy Dalrymple	Episode: "Steele in the Chips"
2000"2001	'	Teddie Cochran	22 episodes
2003	Will & Grace	Janet Adler	Episode: "The Accidental Tsuris"
2005"2006	Commander in Chief	President Mackenzie Allen	19 episodes
2009	Exit 19	Gloria Woods	Television movie
2012	Coma	Dr. Agnetta Lindquist	2 episodes