Skip to main content

Viola Davis

Biography

Viola Davis

Viola Davis is an internationally acclaimed actress, producer, New York Times bestselling author and EGOT winner --- only the fourth person to do so exclusively via performance-based awards. She is the cofounder of JVL Media, a full-service production/media packaging firm and independent publisher.

In 2025, the Golden Globes honored her with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”

Davis is known for her exceptional performances, such as her Emmy-winning role in television’s “How to Get Away with Murder”; her Academy Award–nominated movies Doubt, The Help and Fences (for which she received the Oscar); her Screen Actors Guild Award–winning role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; her two Tony Awards (for Fences and King Hedley II); and as a Grammy winner for best audiobook narration and storytelling recording for her bestselling memoir, FINDING ME.

Viola Davis

Books by Viola Davis

Judge Stone
by Viola Davis and James Patterson - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

The most respected citizen in Union Springs, Alabama (population 3,314), is Judge Mary Stone. She holds two responsibilities sacred: running her family farm and presiding over her courtroom. It's there she draws the most controversial case in the history of the South. Criminally, it’s open-and-shut. Ethically, there is no middle ground. Essentially, it’s a choice between life and death. No judge can satisfy everyone. It would be dangerous to try. But Judge Stone is willing to fight to bring justice to the people and place she loves. 

Finding Me: A Memoir
by Viola Davis - Memoir, Nonfiction

“In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola, who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me. As I wrote FINDING ME, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love.”