OCR Text |
Show sure,s the ,Geena Davi _actress can be a ver since Thelma & Louise raised hell across the celluloid Southwest, Geena Davis has symbolized gun. toting women’sliberation gone awry. Ofcourse, the ditsy housewife who turns into an outlaw was just a role. Even so, Davis probably could teach Thelma a thing or two aboutsetting “I’m pretty ambitious, I haveto say.” course. her own Davis flashes one of her coy, ironic grins. Her cheeks dimple; her mouth twists. She looks de- he shots, she’s all business. This Wednesday, Davis tries on herlatest made- to-orderrole: star catcher for an all-woman baseball team in A League of Their Own, a new movie co-starring Tom Hanks and featuring Madonna. Sheleans backeasily in a chair in heroffice at the 20th Century Fox studiolot, her long legs coming to rest miles from her. Her 6-footframe is doused top to bottom in a bright orange linen pants suit that tapers down to — red sneakers! Vogue probably wouldn’t approve. But who cares? Herhair, still wet from her morning shower,is dyed a brassy blond. Fourlittle earrings climb therim ofher right earlobe. From theleft ear danglesa solitary cupid. Davis, 35, has camped it up in Transylvania 65000 as a love-starved vampire and in Barth Girls Are Easy as a beautician whofinds Mr. Rightin an alien. Her office, too, has its quirks: a ’50s bicycle in one corner, a tacky water fountain topped by a ballet dancer waiting thirstily on her ’50s coffee table. A poster for La Mosca, as the sci-fi horror flick The Fly (with her and ex-husband Jeff Goldblum)is known in Spanish, decorates one wall. Yet in person this actress — dubbed the “tacky, gorgeous Goddess ofthe Ironic Age” by The Washington Post — is thoughtful and “qu-i-et,” she concedes. Sheis a mix of con- tradictions: shy butliving in the public eye, comic butserious, healthy but “a recovering hypochondriac.” Among herfriends, she readily camps it up, but not among strangers. Still, she has lots to say about her career: Her goal is to act in movies whose plots revolve around “the thing my character is going through.” Davis says “there’s a shortage offilms for women where that’s the case. ... Usually, even if a woman has a very large part,it’s not usually her story, her adventure and journey and transformation that’s the key to it. She’s there to observe and assist or” — she pauses — “ruin the journey forthe man.” With her long, lean figure and her Mona Lisa smile, Geena Davis easily could be puresex siren. BY DIANE GOLDNER Butin the characters she has played and the ones she’s developing through her production company, Genial Pictures, she is something more complex. Hercharacters are deliciously seductive and warmhearted. They also happen to be self-possessed — and the possessors of sly humor, drier than a mar- tini. In love, they tend toward the softly euphoric. The former New York model first titillated Hollywood as a long, tall drink of water in bikini underwear in Dustin Hoffman’s dressing room in Tootsie (1982). Six years later, she walked offwith a 8, 4 USA WEEKEND * June 26-2 1992 Photograph by Firooz Zahedi oe mes to calling ted isn’t a boast; it’s a statementoffact. “T’ve always felt like I should be able to do whateverI want.” a ek lighted, amused, abashed. What she has just admit- |