Viola Davis

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At the 2023 Grammy Premiere Ceremony, Viola won the Grammy for best audiobook, thus becoming a coveted EGOT winner (the winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).

Early life and education. Davis was born on August 11, 1965, in St. Matthews, South Carolina, to Mae Alice Davis (née Logan) and Dan Davis. She was born on her grandmother's farm on the Singleton Plantation. Her father was a horse trainer, and her mother was a maid, factory worker and homemaker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Davis

Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and producer. After graduating from the Juilliard School in 1993, Davis began her career on stage and won an Obie Award in 1999 for her performance as Ruby McCollum in Everybody's Ruby. She played supporting and minor roles in several films and television series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the films Kate & Leopold (2001) and Far from Heaven (2002), and the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2001, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in the original production of King Hedley II.

Davis' film breakthrough came in 2008 when her supporting role in the drama Doubt earned her several nominations, including the Golden Globe, SAG, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Greater success came to Davis in the 2010s. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Rose Maxson in the revival of August Wilson's play Fences. For her lead role as 1960s housemaid Aibeleen Clark in the comedy-drama The Help (2011), she received nominations for the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and the Academy Award for Best Actress, and won a SAG Award. In 2016, Davis played Amanda Waller in the superhero action film Suicide Squad and reprised her role as Rose Maxson in the film adaptation of Fences, for which she has won the Golden Globe, SAG Award, BAFTA, and Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress. This made her the first African-American actress and the first woman of color to win five SAG Awards. Davis' portrayal has also garnered an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. With the nomination, Davis has become the first black woman in history to be nominated for three Academy Awards.

Since 2014, Davis plays lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC drama How to Get Away with Murder, and in 2015 she became the first black woman of any nationality to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Her portrayal also won her two SAG Awards in 2015 and 2016. In 2012, she was listed by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, are the founders of the production company JuVee Productions. Davis has starred in their productions Lila & Eve (2015) and Custody (2016).

Update, 7:13 PM: Viola Davis returned to Instagram to clarify her post about owning all of the former plantation where she was born. She did not literally buy it, she said. "Uhh....contrary to websites....I do not 'own' above house, I 'own' my STORY!! Too abstract I guess," she wrote, according to E!.

Original, 9:34 AM: Viola Davis celebrated her 55th birthday by making one of the most powerful purchases in her life: She bought Singleton Plantation, a former plantation in St. Matthews, South Carolina and the place where she was born. She shared a photo on her Instagram, writing, "The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story. Today on my 55th year of life....I own it....all of it."

She added, "'May you live long enough to know why you were born.' -Cherokee Birth Blessing."

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Davis spoke to People's The Jess Cagle Interview show in 2016 about how she grew up unaware of the plantation's grim history.

“I wasn’t on it long, because I was the fifth child, and so we moved soon after I was born,” she started. “I mean, I went back to visit briefly but still not aware of the history. I think I read one slave narrative of someone who was on that plantation, which was horrific. 160 acres of land, and my grandfather was a sharecropper. Most of my uncles and cousins, they’re farmers. That’s the choice that they had. My grandmother’s house was a one room shack. I have a picture of it on my phone because I think it’s a beautiful picture.”

Despite the poor living conditions, Davis said she and her family still found joy living there. "[There was] no running water. No bathroom. It’s just an outhouse," she said. "But my mom says that the day I was born, all of my aunts and uncles were in the house, she said, everyone was drinking and laughing, and having fun. She said she ate a sardine, mustard, onion, tomato sandwich after I was born."

"I love that story,” Davis said. “It’s a great story to me. It’s a great story of celebration in the midst of what you would feel is a decimated environment, but you could see the joy and the life that can come out of that, because it’s not always about things, you know."

Viola Davis Explains What She Meant by Former Plantation Ownership Story
BY ALYSSA BAILEYPUBLISHED: AUG 12, 2020

Update, 7:13 PM: Viola Davis returned to Instagram to clarify her post about owning all of the former plantation where she was born. She did not literally buy it, she said. "Uhh....contrary to websites....I do not 'own' above house, I 'own' my STORY!! Too abstract I guess," she wrote, according to E!.

Original, 9:34 AM: Viola Davis celebrated her 55th birthday by making one of the most powerful purchases in her life: She bought Singleton Plantation, a former plantation in St. Matthews, South Carolina and the place where she was born. She shared a photo on her Instagram, writing, "The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story. Today on my 55th year of life....I own it....all of it."

She added, "'May you live long enough to know why you were born.' -Cherokee Birth Blessing."