Viola Davis, born on August 11, 1965, in Saint Matthews, South Carolina, is a distinguished American actress and film producer.
She is celebrated for her powerful performances on both stage and screen, having achieved the rare distinction of winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT) — a feat accomplished by only a few artists.
In television, Davis made history as the first Black woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role in How to Get Away with Murder.
Beyond acting, she is an advocate for human rights and co-founded the production company JuVee Productions with her husband, Julius Tennon.
Siblings
Viola has four sisters.
Dianne Davis-Wright is the oldest and works as a business and program analyst for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Deloris Davis Grant, another older sister, is an English and drama teacher at Central Falls High School and holds advanced degrees in education.
Anita Davis is also an older sister, though she has led a more private life, with limited public information available about her.
The youngest sister, Danielle Davis, was born in 1977 and is also less publicly known.
Viola is the fifth of six children in her family.
The Davis siblings experienced a challenging upbringing marked by poverty and adversity, but they have supported each other through their struggles and have found success in various fields.
Career
Davis began her acting career on stage, making her Broadway debut in 1996 in August Wilson’s play Seven Guitars.
She received a Tony Award nomination for her performance as the long-suffering paramour of a musician recently released from prison.
In 2001, Davis won her first Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in Wilson’s King Hedley II, where she portrayed a married woman arguing for her right to an abortion.
Davis won her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2010 for her performance as Rose Maxson in the Broadway revival of Wilson’s Fences, opposite Denzel Washington.
Her breakthrough film role came in 2008 when she played the mother of a young man who may have been molested by a priest in the drama Doubt.
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Her brief but powerful performance earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2011, Davis received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as a maid during the Civil Rights Movement in the film The Help.
She later expressed regret for taking the role, feeling that the voices of the maid characters were ultimately not being heard.
Davis received her second Oscar nomination for Best Actress for playing the title role in the 2020 film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the August Wilson play.
With this nomination, she became the most-nominated Black actress in Oscars history.
Davis won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Rose Maxson in the 2016 film adaptation of Fences, reprising her Tony-winning Broadway performance.
On television, she starred as lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC series How to Get Away with Murder from 2014 to 2020.
In 2015, she made history by becoming the first Black actress to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal.
In 2011, Davis and her husband Julius Tennon co-founded JuVee Productions to develop diverse independent films, television, theater, and digital projects.
Awards and accolades
Davis has received numerous awards and accolades throughout her illustrious career, marking her as one of the most celebrated actresses of her generation.
In February 2023, she achieved EGOT status by winning a Grammy Award for Best Audiobook, Narration, and Storytelling for her memoir Finding Me.
This made her the 18th person and the third Black woman in history to achieve this prestigious recognition, joining the ranks of notable artists like Jennifer Hudson and Whoopi Goldberg.
Davis’s accolades include an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Fences, making her the first Black woman to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony for acting, thus achieving the Triple Crown of Acting.
She won her first Tony Award in 2001 for King Hedley II and her second in 2010 for Fences.
Additionally, she made history in 2015 as the first African-American woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role in How to Get Away with Murder.
Beyond these major awards, Davis has received multiple nominations and wins across various prestigious platforms, including the Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, solidifying her legacy in both film and theater.
