Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, making her the only African-American to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in 2012 and 2017, and The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century in 2020.
Davis began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and graduated from the Juilliard School in 1993. She won an Obie Award in 1999 and earned the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 2001. Her film breakthrough came with Doubt (2008), which earned her an Academy Award nomination. She won a Tony Award in 2010 for Fences and received an Academy Award nomination for The Help (2011). From 2014 to 2020, she starred in How to Get Away with Murder, becoming the first black actress to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2015. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Fences (2016) and received a fourth Oscar nomination for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020), becoming the most-nominated black actress in Oscar history.
Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, founded JuVee Productions. She is recognized for her advocacy of human rights and equal rights for women and women of color. In 2017, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2019, she became a L'Oréal Paris ambassador.
United States
