Who is Geena Davis?
Geena Davis is an actress, advocate, and executive producer. She has extensive film history and has been involved in numerous humanitarian ventures. She mainly advocates against gender inequality in Hollywood.
Five Facts about Geena Davis
- She is fluent in Swedish.
- The name Geena is from the characters of a children's segment show in Sweden, Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile.
- She has an older brother named Danforth.
- She has 3 children, a daughter, and fraternal twin sons
- She participated in the semifinals berth in the US Olympic archery team and placed 24th.
Inspirational Quotes from Geena Davis:
"What I didn't realize until much later, in hindsight, was I had subconsciously been choosing projects where the woman was in charge of her own destiny."
"The motto of my institute has always been, 'If they can see it, they can be it.' And it's literally true. If we show something on-screen, it will change what happens in real life."
"If you risk nothing, then you risk everything."
Geena Davis Biography
Early Life
Geena is the youngest of the two siblings of Lucille and William Davis. She became interested in music at an early age, where she learned how to play piano and flute. When she was a teenager, Geena played organ well enough to become the organist at her Congregationalist church.
She studied at Wareham High school and became an exchange student in Sweden. Geena went to New England College, then earned her bachelor's degree in drama at Boston University in 1979.
Career
Before Geena started modeling, she was a window mannequin for Ann Taylor. Then, she signed with Zoli modeling agency in New York. Geena was the first cast as an actress when she was working as a model. Tootsie director Sydney Pollack cast her as a soap opera actress.
In 1985, Geena starred in her first own series Sara. Despite the positive feedback, the timeslot of the series competes with the most popular series at the time. This led to the series lasting only 13 episodes. One of Geena's most notable roles is in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. She played the role of a woman who recently died with her partner and now haunts their former home. The critics mostly praised Geena's role.
In 1992, she starred in A League of Their Own together with Madonna and Tom Hanks. The movie reached number one on the box office. Eventually, it became the 10th highest-grossing movie of the year in North America. This movie earned her a nomination for the Best Actress Golden Globe Award.
In 1994, Geena played the main role in the movie Angie as an office worker dreaming for a better life. The film has mixed feedback and was considered a commercial failure. Within the same year, she starred in another movie, Speechless, which mainly received negative reviews.
However, the film still earned her a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Musical or Comedy. From the mid to late 1990s, Geena's acting career started declining. She claimed in an interview that in her 40s, she only made one movie, Stuart Little.
In the 2000s, she mostly starred in series and sitcoms. In 2000, She had her own sitcom, The Geena Davis Show, which lasted for one season. She took the lead role of the series Commander in Chief, where she portrayed the first US female president. After the first season, the show was canceled despite Geena earning a Golden Globe for Best Actress in Drama series in 2006.
In the 2010s, she further ventured into television acting and career expansion through her organization. In 2014, she was a voice actor for the animated film When Marnie Was There from Studio Ghibli. She had a recurring role in the 11th and 14th season of Grey's Anatomy, where she played Dr. Nicole Herman, a feral surgeon with a fatal brain tumor.
Mission and Work
Geena has been advocating for equality and against gender discrimination among the educational institutions in the United States. In 2004, she sponsored a large research project regarding gender in children's entertainment at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.
It was directed by Stacy Smith and involved four studies, including one on children's television. The research stated that there is only one female character to nearly three male characters. The data involved 400 movies in four categories, namely: G, PG, PG-13, and R-rated. In 2005, Geena collaborated with Dads and Daughters, a non-profit group, to launch a venture as an attempt to balance the gender among the characters in children's television and movies.
In 2007, Davis launched Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a non-profit research organization. The primary aim of the organization is to tackle inequality in Hollywood. A program was implemented to collaborate with the entertainment industry to increase the female characters and reduce the stereotyping roles among the media for children.
In 2014, the institute coordinated with the UN women's agency and the Rockefeller Foundation to conduct the first international study about gender images in movies. Geena also became associated with the USAID and Ad Council's FWD campaign that focused on East Africa's drought in 2011.
Legacy
Geena is a supporter of the Women's Sports Foundation and advocates for Title IX. Title IX is a civil rights law in the US that bans gender discrimination in any US education program.
Her organization's research venture into gender inequality earned her an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in 2009 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy in 2019.
In 2015, Geena launched the Bentonville Film Festival. The annual film festival highlights film diversity, showcasing the movies that mostly feature minorities and women.
Geena produced the documentary This Changes Everything in 2018. The documentary discusses sexism in Hollywood. Several actresses, including Geena, were interviewed regarding their personal experiences in the entertainment industry.
