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Geena Davis
Davis in June 2010
Born	Virginia Elizabeth Davis (1956-01-21) January 21, 1956 (age 68) Wareham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Actress, producer, writer, athlete, model
Years active	1982–present
Spouses	Richard Emmolo (1982–1983) Jeff Goldblum (1987–1990) Renny Harlin (1993–1998) Reza Jarrahy (2001–present)
Children	3 (with Jarrahy)

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 best known for her roles in The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own, and The Accidental Tourist, for which she won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2005, she won 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, b. 1919), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis (b. 1913), 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. After graduating, Davis served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor, until signing with New York's Zoli modeling agency in 1979.

Career

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 up 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 an episode of the series 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 up by a series of her own, Sara, which lasted thirteen episodes.

On film, Davis had a small role in Fletch and played the vampire Odette in the horror spoof Transylvania 6-5000, both released in 1985. Davis' first leading role in a film was in The Fly (1986), which was a box-office hit. She followed that up with another box-office hit, Beetlejuice (1988), directed by Tim Burton, then starred in the musical/comedy Earth Girls Are Easy. Davis won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her role as a kooky dog trainer in The Accidental Tourist (1988), and a was nominated again as Best Actress for her role as a housewife-turned-outlaw in Thelma & Louise (1991). Between those two films, Davis starred in the caper comedy Quick Change (1990). She received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress for her role as Dottie in A League of Their Own (1992). She then co-starred in Hero, alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia. In 1994, she played the title role in Angie, and co-starred with Michael Keaton in the romantic comedy Speechless.

Davis teamed up with then-husband, director Renny Harlin, for the films Cutthroat Island (1995) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). Due to the box office failure of these films, her career took a downturn. Davis had another box-office hit with Stuart Little (1999), and reprised her role as Eleanor Little in the sequel Stuart Little 2 (2002).

During 2000–2001, Davis starred in the short-lived sitcom The Geena Davis Show. In 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 Lucy Award.

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

Personal life

Davis has had four husbands:

• Richard Emmolo (March 25, 1982 – February 26, 1983): Emmolo, ten years older than Davis, was a restaurant manager in New York City. He and Davis had lived together for about five years before marrying. They separated when Davis' career took off and she desired to move to California.
• Jeff Goldblum (November 1, 1987 – October 17, 1990): Goldblum and Davis began dating in 1985 and married in an impromptu wedding ceremony while vacationing in Las Vegas. They co-starred in three films together: Transylvania 6-5000, The Fly, and Earth Girls Are Easy. Despite their divorce, Davis and Goldblum remain friends.
• Renny Harlin (September 18, 1993 – June 21, 1998): Harlin directed Davis in the films Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight. He had extramarital affairs and fathered a child with another woman in 1997, at which point Davis immediately filed for divorce.
• Reza Jarrahy (September 1, 2001 – present): Jarrahy, fifteen years younger than Davis, is an Iranian-American plastic surgeon. He and Davis began dating in 1999 and have three children together: daughter Alizeh Keshvar (born April 10, 2002) and twin sons Kian William and Kaiis Steven (born May 6, 2004). The family resides in Los Angeles.

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, Geena became one of a handful of celebrity faces attached to USAID and Ad Council’s FWD campaign, an awareness push to combat the famine, war and drought in the Horn of Africa. Geena joined Uma Thurman, Josh Hartnett and Chanel Iman to star in YouTube videos that asked America to “FWD the facts” about the crisis affecting more than 13 million people.

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

References

1. ^ "Geena Davis in Olympic archery semifinals". CNN. August 5, 1999. Retrieved May 3, 2010.
2. "Editor's notes: Fish out of water" April 08, 2009, South Coast Today
3. Geena Davis biography. Film Reference.com
4. "Editor's notes: Fish out of water".
5. ^ Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2000
6. "Trends in Photography". Los Angeles Times. July 14, 1989.
7. Mensa USA web site
8. "Davis bio at Yahoo Movies". Movies.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
9. ^ Buffalo Bill at IMDb
10. "‘A League of Their Own’ (PG)". The Washington Post. July 3, 1992. Retrieved May 3, 2010. {{cite news}}: C1 control character in |title= at position 1 (help)
11. "The Top 10 Career Killing Movies". Zimbio.com. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
12. Stuart Little at IMDb
13. "Geena Davis Would Love to Be Part of a 'Beetlejuice' Sequel". BloodyDisgusting.
14. Lucy Award, past recipients WIF web site
15. Richard Mowe (June 29, 2000). "Geena Davis seems game for almost anything". The Herald - Glasgow.
16. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20115385,00.html
17. ^ "The Insider". People (magazine). November 10, 1997.
18. Blash, Margi (2004-05-31). "Hollywood Baby Boom". People.com. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
19. Burch, Ariel Z (15 March 2008). "Geena Davis: In a league of her own". Retrieved 12 June 2012.
20. "Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media". Thegeenadavisinstitute.org. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
21. "List of 2009 Bates honorands at Bates College web site". Bates.edu. 2009-04-09. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
22. Uma Thurman And Geena Davis Film PSAs For USAID. Look to the Stars. November 3, 2011.
23. Litsky, Frank (August 6, 1999). "OLYMPICS; Geena Davis Zeros In With Bow and Arrows". The New York Times. Retrieved May 3, 2010.
24. "Geena Davis still causing commotion in archery". CNN. September 21, 1999. Retrieved May 3, 2010.

External links

• Geena Davis at IMDb
• Template:Nndb
• 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

Template:Persondata

• 1956 births
• Actors from Massachusetts
• American activists
• American archers
• American female models
• American film actors
• American film producers
• American television actors
• Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (television) winners
• Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners
• Boston University alumni
• Feminist artists
• Living people
• People from Wareham, Massachusetts