Career

Davis at the 61st Academy Awards in 1989

Davis was working as a model when she was cast by director Sydney Pollack in his film Tootsie (1982) as a soap opera actress.[12] She followed the role with the part of Wendy Killian in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill,[15] which aired from June 1983 to March 1984. She also wrote the Buffalo Bill episode titled "Miss WBFL."[15]

During the run of Buffalo Bill, 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.

After roles in Fletch, The Fly, Beetlejuice, and several other movies 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).[12] Davis replaced Debra Winger in the role of Dottie Hinson in A League of Their Own (1992), and received a Best Actress Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance.[16] She then co-starred in Hero alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia.

Davis then teamed up with her husband at that time, director Renny Harlin, for the films Cutthroat Island (1995) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). Harlin and she also produced those films. Davis was nominated for the Saturn Award for her performances as Samantha/Charlie in The Long Kiss Goodnight,[17] and as Eleanor Little in Stuart Little (1999), a role she reprised in 2002 and again in 2005.[18]

In 2000-2001, Davis starred in the short-lived sitcom The Geena Davis Show. In the beginning of 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.[19] 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.[20]

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

During the 11th season of Grey's Anatomy, Davis played a recurring role as Dr. Nicole Herman, who is an attending fetal surgeon who has a life-threatening brain tumor.

In October 2015, it was announced that Davis would be starring in the film adaptation of Marjorie Prime alongside Jon Hamm.[21]

In autumn 2016, Davis began her role in The Exorcist, based on the 1973 film of the same name. In the series, Davis stars as the grown-up Regan MacNeil, who has renamed herself Angela Rance to find peace and anonymity from her ordeal as a child. The same demon that tormented Regan as a child apparently did not die as it did in the film's portrayal, and now it has hold of one of Angela's daughters. The all-star cast includes Alan Ruck as Angela's husband and Mexican actor/singer Alfonso Herrera and British actor Ben Daniels as exorcism-performing priests, as well as Sharon Gless in a recurring role as Chris MacNeil (the Ellen Burstyn role in the feature film).

Activism

The handprints of Geena Davis in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

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.[22][23]

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.[24]

Geena Davis in a speech at the Millennium Development Goals Countdown event in the Ford Foundation Building in New York, addressing gender roles and issues in film (24 September 2013)

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.[25]

Davis launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007.[26] 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.[27] 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.[28]

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.[29]

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.[30]

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.[8][12] 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.[31] 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.[32]

Personal life

Reza Jarrahy and Davis in 2009

Davis has been married four times.[33] 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 (born April 2002) and fraternal twin sons (born May 2004).[34][35] On May 8, 2018, Jarrahy filed for divorce from Davis; listing their date of separation as November 15, 2017.[36] Davis responded by filing a petition in which she claimed that she and Jarrahy were never legally married.[37]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1982	Tootsie	April Page
1985	Fletch	Larry
	Transylvania 6-5000	Odette
1986	The Fly	Veronica "Ronnie" Quaife
1988	Beetlejuice	Barbara Maitland
	Earth Girls Are Easy	Valerie Gail
	The Accidental Tourist	Muriel Pritchett
1990	Quick Change	Phyllis Potter
1991	Thelma & Louise	Thelma Dickinson
1992	A League of Their Own	Dottie Hinson
	Hero	Gale Gayley
1994	Angie	Angie Scacciapensieri
	Speechless	Julia Mann
1995	Cutthroat Island	Morgan Adams
1996	The Long Kiss Goodnight	Samantha Caine / Charlene "Charly" Baltimore
1999	Stuart Little	Mrs. Eleanor Little
2002	Stuart Little 2
2005	Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild		Voice: direct-to-video
2009	Accidents Happen	Gloria Conway
2013	In a World...	Katherine Huling
2014	When Marnie Was There	Yoriko Sasaki (voice)	English version
2016	Me Him Her	Mrs. Ehrlick
2017	Marjorie Prime	Tess
	Don't Talk to Irene	Herself
TBA	Eve		Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Knight Rider	Grace Fallon	Episode: "K.I.T.T. the Cat"
1983-1984	Buffalo Bill	Wendy Killian	26 episodes
1984	Fantasy Island	Patricia Grayson	Episode: "Don Juan's Lost Affair"
	Riptide	Dr. Melba Bozinsky	Episode: "Raiders of the Lost Sub"
1984-1986	Family Ties	Karen Nicholson	3 episodes
1985	Secret Weapons	Tamara Reshevsky / Brenda	Television movie
	Remington Steele	Sandy Dalrymple	Episode: "Steele in the Chips"
	Sara	Sara McKenna	13 episodes
1989	Trying Times	Daphne	Episode: "The Hit List"
1990	The Earth Day Special	Kim	Television special
2000-2001	The Geena Davis Show	Teddie Cochran	22 episodes
2004	Will & Grace	Janet Adler	Episode: "The Accidental Tsuris"
2005-2006	Commander in Chief	President Mackenzie Allen	18 episodes
2009	Exit 19	Gloria Woods	Television movie
2012	Coma	Dr. Agnetta Lindquist	2 episodes
2013	Untitled Bounty Hunter Project	Mackenzie Ryan	Unsold TV pilot
	Doc McStuffins	Princess Persephone (voice)	Episode: "Sir Kirby and the Plucky Princess"
2014-2015, 2018	Grey's Anatomy	Dr. Nicole Herman	13 episodes
2015	Annedroids	Student	Episode: "Undercover Pigeon"
2016	The Exorcist	Regan MacNeil / Angela Rance	10 episodes

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
1987	Saturn Awards	Best Actress	The Fly	Nominated
1989	Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress	The Accidental Tourist	Won
1991	Boston Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Won
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	National Board of Review	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Won
	New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	Academy Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	BAFTA Awards	Best Actress in a Leading Role	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	MTV Movie Awards	Best On-Screen Duo	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture Actress	Herself	Nominated
1993	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	A League of Their Own	Nominated
	MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance	A League of Their Own	Nominated
1995	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Speechless	Nominated
1997	Saturn Awards	Best Actress	The Long Kiss Goodnight	Nominated
2000	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Stuart Little	Nominated
2005	Satellite Awards	Best Actress - Television Series Drama	Commander in Chief	Nominated
2006	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Television Series Drama	Commander in Chief	Won
	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series	Commander in Chief	Nominated
	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series	Commander in Chief	Nominated
2017	Fangoria Chainsaw Awards	Best TV Actress	The Exorcist	Nominated

Charities

Geena Davis supports the following charitable causes: Diabetes, Women's Rights, Rape/Sexual Abuse.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]