Dying of Politeness: A Memoir

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This memoir by Academy Award— and Golden Globe—winning actress Davis is a great single-day read that's hard to put down, the story of a life that's warm, real, and not plastic. Most readers will likely finish the book in one sitting, loving it all the way. There are moments of over-cuteness in the telling, but overall, Davis writes with authenticity—like someone readers would like to know. The tales she tells of her life on screen, from the 1982 film Tootsie through TV's Commander in Chief, are captivating. Thelma and Louise looms large in it: Davis says that it was on this set that she learned to speak up for herself in the film industry, damping down her ingrained New England self-effacement. (No surprise that Davis's role model, then and now, is Thelma and Louise costar Susan Sarandon.) Davis is generous in writing about past and present friends, colleagues, and romantic partners, and she speaks up eloquently for gender equity in movie and TV production, a cause that has occupied her in recent years. VERDICT For admirers of Davis, film, or anyone who believes women deserve an equal voice in their industry. In particular, her take on the appeal of Thelma and Louise is spot on. —David Keymer Library Journal a b Zauzmer, Emily (September 5, 2018). "Geena Davis Says She Was Never Legally Married". People . Retrieved September 6, 2018. Davis, now 66, announced her intention to be in the movies at the age of three, thus displaying a penchant for attention-seeking quite at odds with the prevailing mores of Wareham, Massachusetts, in the 1950s. Even her name comes from a desire to avoid being impolite. For years, Davis fondly thought her mother didn’t know the correct way of spelling “Gina”; she was well into her 20s before her mother explained: “I didn’t want anyone to think it was pronounced ‘gina’. As in va-gina.” “It turned out my entire identity was based on the fear of vaginas,” Davis notes drily. There’s the director who asked her to audition by sitting on his lap while he rubbed his face in her breasts 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. She went on to sponsor the largest-ever research project 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 Stacy Smith, showed that there were nearly three male characters to every female one in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-rated movies analyzed. [72] 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. [73]

Davis launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007, [74] which works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children, and to reduce inequality in Hollywood and the stereotyping of females by the male-dominated industry. [75] For her work in this field she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in May 2009; [76] and an honorary Oscar, the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 2019. [77] Bodyguard to the stars': the man helping Jeff Bezos fight the Enquirer". TheGuardian.com. February 12, 2019. And she has no regrets — Davis says from the moment she met Susan Sarandon it was clear Sarandon was destined to be Louise. Davis was happy to play Thelma and says the experience of making the film was "just as fantastic" as she had imagined.Kaplan, Ilana (October 11, 2022). "Geena Davis on Childhood Trauma, a Cut Scene From A League of Their Own, and Her Memoir, Dying of Politeness". Vanity Fair . Retrieved November 4, 2022.

Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis taking a Polaroid of themselves in a scene from the film Thelma & Louise, 1991. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Imagesinessential takeaway: probably never considered this previously, but I think I now know why Geena Davis is mostly unfamiliar to fans of independent features (i.e. the filmmaking era — post-classical cinema — she thrived through). 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. [79] [5] She placed 24th and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition. [80] In August 1999, she stated that she was not an athlete growing up and that she entered archery in 1997, two years before her tryouts. [79] Filmography [ edit ] Film [ edit ] Year Dustin Hoffman seems to have had a lot of advice for you. He also told you not to sleep with your co-stars, and if they want to—what was the line?

a b "OLYMPICS; Geena Davis Zeros In With Bow and Arrows". NY Times. August 6, 1999. Archived from the original on June 12, 2015 . Retrieved December 24, 2015. Virginia Elizabeth " Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an American actor [1] and producer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Well, my mom knew from early on that I was going to be extremely tall, and she was on me from the beginning to not slouch my shoulders. Before I even would have thought of slouching my shoulders, she was, like, “You have to stand up straight.” And so I would find ways to curve my hips out, which would maybe make me a little shorter, or perch on things. But I really wanted to be small. From two-time Academy Award winner and screen icon Geena Davis, the surprising tale of her “journey to badassery”—from her epically polite childhood to roles that loaned her the strength to become a powerhouse in Hollywood.

Kering and the Festival de Cannes announce Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon as recipients of the 2016 'Women in Motion' Awards". Kering. May 6, 2016 . Retrieved October 25, 2021. Geena Davis attends the Emmy Awards in Sept. 2022. This month, she spoke with NPR's Morning Edition about her movie career and upcoming memoir. most notably, stars as lead thelma, in thelma and louise—partly thanks to her, we have that beautiful scene of brad pitt shirtless (one of his first acting roles, if not his first). Being diagnosed in her 40s with ADD, she says, was “very impactful”. “I thought there was something terribly wrong with me that I should be embarrassed about,” she says of her short attention span. And I didn’t want anybody to know, you know, that I had a character flaw... so it was a huge relief to find out that it was something that didn’t have to do with me being a failure, you know?” She talks about the “superpower” aspects of her condition. “It can be hard to focus but when you do focus, it’s like, the gears mesh, and you really can hyper focus and do it all day and all night. If I start doing something that I really am engaged in, I don’t know when to stop, I don’t know when to go to bed.” Annual Satellite Awards – December 2005". International Press Academy. Archived from the original on July 18, 2011 . Retrieved October 26, 2021.