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Show SAVE NOW ON SHERWIN-WILLIAMS PAINT! best-supporting-actress Oscar for herrole as the chatty, offbeat dog trainer in The Accidental Tourist, beating out Sigourney Weaveras the hard-bitten boss of Working Girl and Michelle Pfeiffer as the fervid mistress of Dangerous Liaisons. Then, last summer with Susan Sarandon, she blew audiences away in Thelma & Louise, the ultimate female bud- dy movie. That movie catapulted Davis from rela- I'll be a clothing designer, and an inventor, and a graphic artist.’ I thought, ‘I'll be each thing for 10 mimicking the way people have discussed her. “T’ve always wondered whypeople thoughtthat.” years, andI'll switch professions, because there are Forstarters, sparks flew, on screen and off, with so many things I wantto be.’ Beingjust an actress, The Fly. Davis played a reporter who remained poignantly loyal to Goldblum’s character, a bril- at least “now I don’t haveto go to law school.” Little Geena played dress-up in a friend’s basement, and in high school she was on the track team. But growingto the sameheightas her older liant scientist, even after an accident transformed him from the man shehadloved into giantfly. Then,in 1987, the couple married in Las Vegas. tive obscurity to the cover of Time and emblazonedher in the collective consciousness as a top-tier star. Now,with the re- OPENING WEDNESDAY: ‘A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN’ The summer’s big baseball movie fields Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna lease of A League of Their Own, the Babe - is behind home plate Yoy either get it for a pro baseball team of the ’40s — female don't or you : Nt. baseball was quite the whatshe had onat the time) in the 3 a.m. ceremony. TOM ON GEENA: isn’t going to know what hithim. Davis 2 “We had been sort of planning we’d doit,” Davis says, “but we didn’t know how.” She wore a black pants suit (that’s Davis and Goldblum fell for each other again in the psychedelic Earth Girls Are Easy. But notlong after she won the Oscar for The Accidental Tourist, their marriage hit the rocks. Perhaps, Hollywood being so competitive, the couple became unbalanced when Davis graduated from ingenue. They as “Geena ‘gets it. were divorced after the filming of Thelma & Louise — she won’t discuss the breakup — butlately have She cast Jesus us been spotted in each other’s company. “I wouldn’t call it dating,” Davis says, perhaps too emphatically. “We hang out together. We’re friends.” the star-studded Olym- cist TEE GS aking Thelma & Louise had the impact of a tidal wave on Geena Davis’ exis- pus of Hollywood. tence. “You know,it was really grati- fashionable spectator sport during World WarII. If it’s another . Lage could aa er at (Christ SUP a erstar’ J sing parts. She the summit o alaphas. She Davis playsa dairy knows how to worker whois recruit- blow time.” fying to meet women whohadseen the movie, just in my dailylife, at the spunky youngersister, rd played by Lori Petty, for the Rockford Peaches ofIllinois. In short order, she becomes the team hero, inspires her kid sister to achieve, and awakens hope in the boozy brother (now a geological engineer in Las Vegas) made Geenafeel GEENA ON MADONNA: gawky. “I didn’t have “We never got boyfriends,” she recalls of her particular bout close. [ mean, with adolescent angst. filling roles for anybody in this business. But I “Mycharacter, Dottie, is very focused and a After studying acting You know, she's pure athlete. She’s born for this. She becomes the at Boston University, life than the turning 40 and being passed overfor lead roles by leader.”In the process,“she’s able to prove to her- she moved to the Soho self that she is the best. And it’s like she can let it go. She can say, ‘I’ve donethis.’ And shereally district of Manhattan inest of us. wants to have children. ... It’s not in the movie, an life and worked as a ed, along with her former-player-turned-coach (Hanks). The coach and catcher comecloseto falling in love — but chastely: Davis’ character is married to a soldier goneoff to the war. And to him she remains true. but in my version, what happens is she has lot ofkids, and some grow up to be major-league players,” adds Davis, who always imagines characters’ pasts and futures, even when they don’t existliterally on the screen.“This actually happened to some ofthe women. They’re amazing, amazing, wonderful women. They deserve to have their story told.” Davis hopes to remind Americansofa lost piece ofhistory. At the very least, A League of Their i . mall or whatever. This time it was like: ‘Thank you for making that movie; it really changed mylife; it meant something to me.’ It’s a good feeling.” She doesn’t regard the movie as man-bashing. Rather, the shooting of the would-berapist “is a metaphorfor fighting back and taking power.” Now Davisis developing stories at Genial Productions that involve strong women. (And strong p had a different ” 1980, lived the bohemi- model, even though 5-foot-10 was the ceiling on height. “I’d wear heels all the time on appointments. You'd think that was the wrong thingto do. But, in fact, people would say, ‘Wow! You seem taller than 5-10.’ And I’d say, ‘Oh, I have heels on.’ ” where “at least my character has a meaningful arc.” “I never became famous,” Davis notes. But as she had hoped, modeling led to acting: The casting director of Tootsie put out a request for somebody tall to Zoli, Davis’ agency. And Davis got the part. She then ended brieffirst marriage to a restaurateur — their lives were diverging — and moved avis’ own arc has beenfairly direct. Growing up Virginia Elizabeth Davis in Wareham, Mass., the daughter of an in TV sitcoms. Remember Buffalo Bill? Or Sara? With Transylvania 6-5000 in 1985, she moved backto the silver screen — andinto the arms ofJeff Ownis another movie, like Thelma & Louise, to Hollywood, where she hada short-lived career engineer and a teacher’s aide, “I knew when I was 5 or something that I wanted to be an actress. I can rememberparts of mylife where I was thinking, ‘Well, I'll be an actress, and Goldblum,now 39,whostarredin that low-budget comedy. The two seemed marvelously suited — both tall (Jeffchecks in at 6-foot-5), warm and fun- ny. “ ‘They look good together,’ ” Davis says, men,too, she promises.) “It’s difficult to find fulthink much more so for women.” The specter of the studiosalso drives her. “I think I was hoping the generation ofactresses that’s a little older than me — Meryl [Streep] and Glenn Close — ‘Oh, those women! God, they’re goingto blaze thetrail before me.’ Things are hopefully going to change. “I don’t wantto stop working in my 40s. And I wanttostill be able to be sexual. ... It’s sort of ironic and unfair that Sean Connery is on the cover of People as the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ at age 60. And where is the 60-year-old woman they’re going to put onthe coverandcall the Sexiest Woman Alive?” So far, Davis is working on 12 stories — including Bigmalion, a comedy about a man whotries to civilize a woman whoendsupcivilizing him; a Western featuring one Justice Calhoun, a kind of Calamity Geena; and several thrillers. How manyinvolve parts for Davis? “All of them!” she laughs. “Obviously, I won’t be able to end up being in all these movies.” Someshe might just produce. For ABC, Davis even is working up a series of non-sexistfairy tales. “You know,”shesays. “The princess saves herself.” How appropriate. USA WEEKEND * June 26-28, 1992 5 |