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Full Name:	Geena Davis
Birth Name:	Virginia Elizabeth Davis
Famous As:	Actress
Date of Birth:	January 21, 1956
Place of Birth:	Wareham, Massachusetts, USA
Height:	6'
Nationality:	American

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  Boston Globe - Found May. 31, 2009 LEWISTON, Maine --Academy-award winner Geena Davis is in Maine to speak and be honored at the Bates College graduation in Lewiston. Davis will be ...

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  Huffington Post - Found May. 25, 2009 With the premiere of Accidents Happen, the 51 year old actor Geena Davis steps into the spotlight again, this time by doing a quirky little...

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  Grimsby Telegraph - Found Jun. 2, 2009 Geena Davis has called for more women to be represented on children's TV and movies.

• Geena Davis wants more women on TV

  Croydon Advertiser - Found Jun. 2, 2009 Geena Davis has called for more women to be represented on children's TV and movies.

• Geena Davis speaks at Maine college's graduation

  The State - Found Jun. 1, 2009 LEWISTON, Maine -- Actress Geena Davis says it's critical that young people see more women in movies and TV. Addressing Bates College graduates in

• Geena Davis speaks at Maine college's graduation

  Palladium Item - Found Jun. 1, 2009 ... graduates in Lewiston, Maine, Davis says that 'society can only benefit if women are at the table.' The founder of the Geena Davis Institute...

• Geena Davis speaks at Maine college's graduation

  Gadsden Times - Found Jun. 1, 2009 ... at 7:24 a.m. Actress Geena Davis says it's critical that young people see more women in movies and TV. Addressing Bates graduates in Lewiston, ...

• Geena Davis speaks at Maine college's graduation

  StarBanner.com - Found Jun. 1, 2009 LEWISTON, Maine - Actress Geena Davis says it's critical that young people see more women in movies and TV. Addressing Bates College graduates in

Geena Davis extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Geena Davis
Davis at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	Virginia Elizabeth Davis January 21, 1956 (1956-01-21) (age 53) Wareham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, Producer, Writer
Years active	1982–present
Spouse(s)	Richard Emmolo (1982–1983) Jeff Goldblum (1987–1990) Renny Harlin (1993–1998) Reza Jarrahy (2001–)

Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist.¹

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Personal life 4 Activism 5 Sports 6 Filmography 7 Television work 8 References 9 External links

Early life

Davis was born in Wareham, Massachusetts, USA, the daughter of Lucille, a teacher's assistant, and William Davis, a civil engineer; she has a brother named Dan.² At an early age, she became interested in music. She learned piano, flute and drums and played organ well enough as a teenager to serve as an organist at her church in Wareham. Davis attended Wareham High School and while an exchange student in Sandviken, Sweden, she became bilingual; she is fluent in Swedish. Enrolling at New England College, Davis eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from Boston University in 1979. While at Boston University, Davis worked part time for the Media Group.

Career

After graduating, Davis signed with New York's Zoli modelling agency and served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor. With a height of six feet and a shoe size of 11 (US), Davis was a striking model cast from a different mold. 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 director Sydney Pollack spotted her and cast her in Tootsie (1982) as a soap opera actress. She followed this up with roles in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill (1983–1984) (for which she also wrote an episode); Sara; and a small role in Fletch (1985).

Davis made her film breakthrough with The Fly and Beetlejuice. She received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Accidental Tourist (1988), and a Best Actress nomination for her role in Thelma and Louise (1991). Davis replaced Debra Winger for the lead 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. Following this, Davis teamed up with then-husband Renny Harlin for the films Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight. She and Harlin co-produced the films.

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 most recently starred in the ABC television series Commander in Chief as 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.

Personal life

Davis was married to Richard Emmolo (March 25, 1982 – February 26, 1983); actor Jeff Goldblum, with whom she co-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 Iranian-American Reza Jarrahy. They have three children: daughter Alizeh Keshvar (born April 10, 2002) and fraternal twin boys Kian William Jarrahy and Kaiis Steven Jarrahy on May 6, 2004.

In 1999, Davis was a semi-finalist in trials for the United States' Olympic Archery team. She placed twenty-fourth out of twenty-eight.

Davis is 6 feet (1.83 m) tall and is a member of American Mensa, the society of persons with IQs in the statistical top 2%,³ with an IQ of 140.

Davis was considered for roles in Ghost (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Basic Instinct (1992), My Cousin Vinny (1992), Speed (1994), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), etc.

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. From that starting point, 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 of University of Southern California. The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, shows that there are 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 coded. That research sparked Davis to launch 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 both males and females.

For her work in this field she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in May 2009.⁴

Sports

Geena Davis was one of 300 women competing in July 1999 ⁵ for a semifinals berth in the US Olympic team for archery, 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.⁶

Davis states that she wasn't an athlete growing up,⁷ and that her introduction to the sport was in 1997, two years prior to her tryouts.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1982	Tootsie	April Page
1985	Fletch	Larry
	Transylvania 6-5000	Odette
1986	The Fly	Veronica Quaife	Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
1988	Beetlejuice	Barbara Maitland
	Earth Girls Are Easy	Valerie Gail
	The Accidental Tourist	Muriel Pritchett	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1990	Quick Change	Phyllis Potter
1991	Thelma and Louise	Thelma Yvonne Dickinson	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress shared with Susan Sarandon National Board of Review Award for Best Actress tied with Susan Sarandon Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1992	A League of Their Own	Dottie Hinson	Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
	Hero	Gale Gayley
1993	Princess Scargo and the Birthday Pumpkin	Narrator (voice)	short subject
1994	Angie	Angie Scacciapensieri
	Speechless	Julia Mann	also producer Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1995	Cutthroat Island	Morgan Adams
1996	The Long Kiss Goodnight	Samantha Caine / Charly Baltimore	also producer Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
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

Television work

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1983-1984	Buffalo Bill	Wendy Killian
1983	Knight Rider	Grace Fallon	Guest star, "K.I.T.T. The Cat" (Season 2, Episode 6)
1984	Family Ties	Karen Nicholson	Guest star, two episodes
1985	Sara	Sara McKenna	Cancelled after a few months
	Secret Weapons	Tamara Reshevsky/Brenda
	Remington Steele	Sandy Dalrymple	"Steele in the Chips" (Season 3, Episode 20)
2000-2001	The Geena Davis Show	Teddie Cochran
2003	Will & Grace	Grace's Sister
2005-2006	Commander in Chief	President Mackenzie Allen	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Drama Series
2008-present	Link's Future	Mrs. Diane Bolton	Season 3-present

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Geena Davis

• Geena Davis at the Internet Movie Database
• Geena Davis at TV.com

v • d • e Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Maureen Stapleton (1981) · Jessica Lange (1982) · Linda Hunt (1983) · Peggy Ashcroft (1984) · Anjelica Huston (1985) · Dianne Wiest (1986) · Olympia Dukakis (1987) · Geena Davis (1988) · Brenda Fricker (1989) · Whoopi Goldberg (1990) · Mercedes Ruehl (1991) · Marisa Tomei (1992) · Anna Paquin (1993) · Dianne Wiest (1994) · Mira Sorvino (1995) · Juliette Binoche (1996) · Kim Basinger (1997) · Judi Dench (1998) · Angelina Jolie (1999) · Marcia Gay Harden (2000) Complete list · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present)

Persondata
NAME	Davis, Geena
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Davis, Virginia Elizabeth
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actress
DATE OF BIRTH	January 21, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wareham, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH