Virginia was born and raised in Wareham, Massachusetts where she learned to play the piano and flute at an early age. By her teenage years, Virginia was so accomplished that she became the organist at her church. Popular in high school, she was the head cheerleader in her senior year. She attended New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire and transferred to Boston University, leaving there just a couple of credits shy of earning her degree.

Virginia moved to New York and found work as a salesclerk at the women’s specialty clothing store called Ann Taylor. Day after day, Virginia, dressed in Ann Taylor clothing, helped other women select just the right outfit from their collection. On one Saturday, Virginia, dressed in her Ann Tayler clothing, stopped by the Ann Taylor store with some of her friends. In the showroom window, they saw a couple of mannequins dressed in Ann Taylor apparel sitting at a little café table as if they were having lunch. Plastic food sat on the plates in front of them. A mischievous thought came over Virginia. She turned to her friends and said, “Hey, dare me to go and sit in the chair?” With wide grins, they replied, “Yeah, go ahead, do it.” When no one was looking, Virginia snuck into the showroom display window and sat down with the mannequins. She sat perfectly motionless. Her friends just stared from outside the store.

People passing by noticed the girls’ fixed stares at the showroom display. A crowd began to gather outside the showroom window. They were curious and asked, “What are you looking at.” The girls would only say, “Just wait, just wait.” Virginia’s friends knew that she would have to blink her eyes eventually. Finally, Virginia blinked her dry eyes. It was over in an instant. She made no other movement. The people in the crowd who saw her blink said, “Wooo!” The people who missed it asked the ones who had seen it what they missed. Some of those who saw her blink were second guessing what they had just seen. Did she really blink? Was she real or a mannequin? The crowd became larger. All eyes were fixed on Virginia’s eyes. Finally, another blink. The people in the crowd who saw her blink went wild. The crowd grew larger, as did the cheers, at every blink of Virginia’s eyes. Although no one in the crowd could tell, because she sat completely motionless except for an occasional blink which was over in an instant, Virginia was thoroughly enjoying her prank.

Finally, the manager noticed the noise coming from outside the showroom window and went to investigate. She looked at the crowd and looked at the mannequins sitting in the showroom window. Finally, Virginia blinked, and the crowd went wild again. The manager rushed back into the store and scoldingly told her to “Get out of the window!” As Virginia stood to remove herself from the window, the manager had a sudden realization. Their showroom window had never drawn so much attention before. “Stay in the window!” she said. Virginia sat back down and continued to pretend to be a mannequin. The large crowd was delighted and continued to watch in eager anticipation of every blink. The store hired Virginia every Saturday to be a mannequin.

The mannequin prank led to bigger things for Virginia. A few Saturdays later, Virginia signed with New York’s Zoli modeling agency. From there she was cast in the 1982 film Tootsie. In jest, Virginia described her part in the film as “someone who’s going to be in their underwear a lot of the time.” She was cast in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill, and guest-starred in Family Ties, Riptide, Remington Steele, and Knight Rider. Virginia appeared in the Chevy Chase comedy Fletch, and starred in Transylvania 6-5000, the Fly, Earth Girls Are Easy, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of their Own, and The Accidental Tourist, for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The list of films and television shows which Virginia has starred in continues to grow. Virginia Elizabeth Davis was given a nickname shortly after her birth by her older brother, Dan, to differentiate her from an auto also named Virginia. You and I know her as Geena Davis.

Source: “Geena Davis on Her Early Gig as a Living Mannequin,” National Public Radio, February 11, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155478251/geena-davis-on-her-early-gig-as-a-mannequin.