Geena Davis

Geena Davis was born on January 21, 1956, in Wareham, Massachusetts. Her mother, Lucille (née Cook), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis, was a civil engineer and church deacon. Both were from small towns in Vermont. Davis has an older brother, Danforth ("Dan"). She became interested in music at an early age. She learned piano and flute and played organ well enough as a teenager to be organist at her Congregational church in Wareham. Davis was also a cheerleader and was cheer captain her senior year of high school. She attended Wareham High School and was an exchange student in Sandviken, Sweden, where she became fluent in Swedish. She wanted to study acting at Boston University but missed the required audition during her year in Sweden, so she began her college education at New England College before transferring to Boston University; she didn't earn enough credits to graduate, having received an incomplete in at least one class and an F in movement class. Her first post-university work was as a model for window mannequins at Ann Taylor; she then signed with New York's Zoli modeling agency. In her 2022 memoir, she states that her brother came up with the nickname Geena shortly after her birth to differentiate her from her Aunt Virginia, who went by the nickname Ginny.