Smiling her way to stardom

After an extremely polite upbringing, Geena Davis broke the family mould on making it in Hollywood and is now intent on helping other women do likewise.

- Louise cHUNN

Geena Davis is a Hollywood star who, like many women in their sixties, doesn't attract the attention she used to. But rather than content herself with a smattering of cameo spots on TV series, Davis has spent the past few decades sponsoring a data-driven institute proving gender disparity in TV and movies, training to be a prize-winning archer and, now, writing a frank and funny memoir that has garnered loads of media coverage and put paid to any lingering affection we had for Bill Murray.

I caught up with her on the British leg of her book tour. At morning coffee in her publisher's corporate tower, she certainly owned the room. At 1.83m tall with long raven hair, porcelain-pale skin and a big-smiling countenance, she was dressed in an electric-blue sleeveless tiered dress and heels hardly what most 66-year-olds would wear on a wet autumn day. But as I already knew from reading her book, Davis does things her way.

She grew up in Wareham, Massachusetts, as the child of two modest, hard-working, old-fashioned New Englanders. The family, including an older brother, lived as her grandparents had, taking baths on Saturday nights (they had no shower), growing their own vegetables, and being constantly resourceful. "Our collection of used foil was something to marvel at. I'm not sure they ever bought a second roll," she recounts in her memoir, Dying of Politeness.

When I ask about the title she says it sums up the prevailing spirit of her childhood: "I knew people's parents were different from mine but I didn't notice we were so polite until I was much older. Growing up, politeness was ingrained in me. The most important thing was for people to like you.