But success and stardom for the actress would come in the movies.ĭavis made her feature debut as a scantily clad soap-opera performer who innocently shares a dressing room with the cross-dressing Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie' (1982). This failed but inoffensive attempt to recreate 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' for the 80s boasted a sterling supporting cast that included Alfre Woodard, Bill Maher and Bronson Pinchot. Davis graduated to sitcom lead as 'Sara' (NBC, 1985), a young single attorney sharing a San Francisco storefront apartment with three other lawyers. She next surfaced as Wendy Killian, an ingenuous research assistant, providing one of several foils to Dabney Coleman's titular detestable talk show host 'Buffalo Bill' (NBC, 1983-84) in that short-lived but highly acclaimed sitcom. Davis' slightly daft domestic enchanted both her diminutive employer and a huge primetime audience. After a career downturn that coincided with her marriage to critically-lambasted action director Renny Harlin, David rebounded with an impressive series of mature roles that kept her in the Hollywood spotlight, including a starring role as the president of the United States in 'Commander in Chief' (ABC 2005-06), a stint on medical drama 'Grey's Anatomy' (ABC 2005- ) and the lead in the first season of a television reboot of 'The Exorcist' (Fox 2016-18).ĭavis first registered on TV in 1982 in the briefly recurring role of the guileless maid Karen Nicholson hired by precocious young conservative Alex P Keaton (Michael J Fox) on the hit NBC sitcom 'Family Ties'. Her imposing physique also gave her rare credibility to play athletes and other unusually physical roles. More often than not, her best characterizations had her starting out as an untried and fairly ditsy naif who is forced to make decisions that allow her to grow over the course of the narrative. Strikingly attractive with just a touch of gawkiness, Davis projected an all but irresistible friendliness and vulnerability in her early appearances.

While Davis' somewhat goofy charm was well deployed in quirky comedies (e.g., 'Fletch' 1985 'Beetlejuice' 1988 'Quick Change' 1990), she also displayed a flair for drama, notably with an Oscar-winning turn in Lawrence Kasdan's 'The Accidental Tourist' (1988) and her career-defining role opposite Susan Sarandon in 'Thelma and Louise' (1991). Beginning in the early '80s, this statuesque (about 6') former fashion model carefully crafted a winning screen persona that made her one of Hollywood's most sought-after actors.

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