Dying of Politeness

August 1, 2022
Known for her fierce roles in everything from the swashbuckling film Cutthroat Island to TV's first female U.S. president in Commander in Chief, Davis didn't consider herself a feminist until playing one of the iconic duo in Thelma & Louise. In fact, it would take the influence of her gutsy costar, Susan Sarandon, to help Davis find her voice and her spine. Raised in a stoic, conventional New England family, in which good manners were prized above all else, Davis struggled to keep her exuberance for life and desire to be an actress under control. Her ambition too often tempered by that ingrained need to please, Davis found herself reluctantly acquiescing to the norms of a male-dominated industry during her early career. With saucy self-deprecation, robust glee, and touch of goofiness, Davis recounts behind-the-scenes anecdotes from her award-winning film and TV career with a dishiness that only thinly veils the underlying message of empowerment and commitment that enabled her own journey to women's advocacy for gender equality and opportunity off- and on screen and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to her Academy and Golden Globe Awards.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Davis' memoir will be hot, given its dual draw of Hollywood tales and urgently needed gender-rights advocacy.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 29, 2022
Academy Award–winning actor Davis’s spunky memoir presents her self-actualization via film roles: “I kicked ass onscreen way before I did so in real life.” Her charmingly perplexed tone about her misfit years growing up in New England can sometimes feel dissonant, like when she describes being molested by a neighbor when she was 10. After not-quite graduating (she never finished required credits) from Boston University, Davis moves to New York City and lands her first movie role, acting opposite Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. She then charts her rise to the upper echelons of Hollywood upon relocating to L.A.: her first lead in obsessive Cronenberg’s The Fly (co-starring her second husband, Jeff Goldblum); the creative liberation of her role in Beetlejuice; working with an unpredictable, raging Bill Murray on Quick Change, and—in contrast—a transformative collaboration with Susan Sarandon on Thelma and Louise. Davis hits typical memoir pitfalls, but frankly describes the sexual harassment she felt unable to call out as a woman with artistic ambitions in the industry before the vocabulary of #MeToo. She gets into her love of archery and the lack of roles for women over 40, but gives scant details of her experience of motherhood (“my favorite role of all one I plan to talk about the least”) or her four divorces. Davis displays trademark gumption, if uneven introspection, in this spunky chronicle of showbiz. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA.

September 1, 2022
A celebrated actor reflects on her identity. Academy Award winner Davis makes an engaging literary debut with a candid, appealing memoir recounting her evolution from self-effacing young woman to feisty activist. "The characters I've played," she writes, "have helped transform me, slowly, in fits and starts, into someone who can stand up for herself." The author's parents, models of politeness, expected her to be undemanding and acquiescent. By the time she was an adult, she realized that she had spent her life "trying to massage everyone's feelings, walking on eggshells, subjugating my own wishes to keep the peace." In her early jobs as a model, throughout several marriages, and in her first roles as an actor, Davis struggled with diffidence--until she was cast in Thelma and Louise (1991) and met her co-star, Susan Sarandon. "How had I never been exposed to a woman like this," Davis asked herself, "a woman who very simply and clearly said what she thought?" The author takes readers behind the scenes of movies that include Tootsie ("that whole experience was a masterclass in filmmaking, and from two industry geniuses--Sydney Pollack and Dustin Hoffman"); Beetlejuice; The Accidental Tourist, for which Davis won an Oscar for best supporting actress; A League of Their Own, in which she starred with Tom Hanks; and Stuart Little, where she and Hugh Laurie played Stuart's parents. Although she imparts gossip ("Only as time went on did I understand how rampant sexual harassment was in my business, and the extremity of what so many of my peers were suffering"), for the most part, she portrays her colleagues with kindness. In her 40s, she invented a vastly different role for herself. As a new mother to a daughter and twin boys, the dearth of female characters in kids' entertainment led her to create an institute that serves as "the go-to resource for research and insights into onscreen bias." An entertaining and ebullient memoir.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.