Oscar Profile #194: Judy Davis

Born April 23, 1955 in Perth, Australia, Judy Davis had a strict Catholic upbringing – she was educated at Loreto Convent; the Western Australian Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Dramatic Arts. Forbidden to watch television as a child, she has certainly made up for it by starring in numerous landmark television productions as an adult.

Davis first came to prominence in 1979’s My Brilliant Career, an Australian film that achieved international acclaim. She widened her visibility greatly when she played the young Golda Meir in the acclaimed 1981 mini-series for which she received her first Emmy nomination while Ingrid Bergman won a posthumous Emmy as the elder Meir. Her portrayal of Miss Quested in David Lean’s 1984 adaptation of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India brought her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. 1987’s High Tide continued her run of awards recognition including an Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress.

1991 proved to be one of the actress’s busiest and best years. First seen in another real life portrait as George Sand in Impromptu, she returned to E.M. Forster territory for Where Angels Fear to Tread and ended the year winning the New York Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in two other of that year’s films, Barton Fink and Naked Lunch. She then won a Golden Globe and her second Emmy nomination for portraying World War II heroine Mary Liddell in One Against the Wind. The following year she earned her second Oscar nomination for Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives.

Davis received her third Emmy nomination and her first win for 1995’s Serving in Silence as Glenn Close’s lesbian lover. She then earned her fourth, fifth and sixth Emmy nominations for 1998’s The Echo of Thunder; 1999’s Dash and Lilly (as Lillian Hellman) and 2000’s A Cooler Climate. Her big screen roles during this period in Blood and Wine; Absolute Power; Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity were mostly marking time until the 2001 TV event film, Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows brought her renewed acclaim, another Golden Globe and another Emmy.

The actress’s most acclaimed post-Garland work has been on television. She earned further Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for her portrayal of Nancy Reagan in 2003’s The Reagans and continued her love affair with Emmy voters who provided her with her ninth, tenth and eleventh nominations for 2006’s A Little Thing Called Murder; 2007’s The Starter Wife (her third win) and 2011’s Page Eight.

Married to actor Colin Friels since 1984, the two have appeared together both on screen and on stage in Australia.

Judy Davis continues to be a welcome presence on screens, both big and small, and should remain so for years to come.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984), directed by David Lean

Davis made no secret of her dislike for the bullying Lean. Her unhappiness shows in her performance as the often frowning Englishwoman visiting the magistrate she is engaged to in a small town in India under the control of the British Raj.

The sumptuous production provided marvelous acting opportunities for Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft and James Fox, all of whom won awards from the British Academy. In the U.S., it was Ashcroft who received most of the accolades including a Best Actress win from the New York Film Critics. Oscar relegated Ashcroft to Supporting Actress, an award she easily won. They gave Davis a surprise Best Actress nod, an occasion she likened to Cinderella dressing for the ball only to learn that she wasn’t the princess.

ONE AGAINST THE WIND (1991), directed by Larry Elikann

Davis received some of the best notices of career, some of which compared her to Vivien Leigh, for her portrayal of real-life English Countess Mary Liddell, a former nurse who risks her life hiding British and American soldiers from the Nazis with the aid of her teenage son and daughter in occupied Paris.

The acclaimed performance won her a Golden Globe and her second Oscar nomination.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992), directed by Woody Allen

Davis earned comparisons to Bette Davis for her plucky portrayal of a middle-aged woman going through a divorce with husband Sydney Pollack which causes best friends Allen and wife Mia Farrow to question their own marriage.

This was Allen and Farrows’s last film together, btu it was Pollack and especially Davis who took home the kudos resulting in Davis’s second Oscar nomination.

LIFE WITH JUDY GARLAND: ME AND MY SHADOWS (2001), directed by Robert Allan Ackerman

As perfect a show biz biography as has ever been attempted, this TV movie based on a memoir by Garland’s second daughter, Lorna Luft, follows the ups and downs of the show business legend from the 1930s to her death in 1969.

Both Tammy Blanchard as the young Judy and Davis as the mature Garland are aces. Both stars lip sync perfectly to Garland’s original recordings. The film won all kinds of awards including richly deserved Emmys for both Davis and Blanchard.

THE REAGANS (2003), directed by Robert Allan Ackerman

Davis’ uncanny ability to bring real life persons, both celebrated and ordinary, continues unabated with her marvelous rendering of Nancy Reagan opposite James Brolin’s Ronnie.

The two-hour film provides both Brolin and Davis with ample opportunity to chew scenery and chew it they do, but with panache. Davis’s Nancy is a mean-spirited control freak one minute, a loving, doting wife the next. Unlike her young Golda Meir to Ingrid Bergman’s older version in 1981’s A Woman Called Golda and her older version of Judy Garland to Tammy Blanchard’s younger one in 2001’s Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows the peerless Australian actress gets to play one of America’s most well-known first ladies from her first meeting with the future president to her ride off with him into the sunset.