Kristin Davis

Kristin Landen Davis (also listed as Kristin Lee Davis; born February 24, 1965) is an American actress. She first rose to prominence and achieved fame for playing the role of Brooke Armstrong on Melrose Place and went on to achieve greater success as Charlotte York Goldenblatt on HBO's Sex and the City. --- Davis was born in Boulder, Colorado. She is an only child, and her parents divorced when she was a baby. She was adopted by her stepfather, then-University of Colorado Boulder professor Keith Davis, after he married her mother, Dorothy, a university data analyst, in 1968. She has three sisters from her adoptive father's first marriage. Early in her childhood, she and her parents moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where her father served as provost and teaches psychology at the University of South Carolina. Davis wanted to be an actress from the age of 9, when she was cast in the Workshop Theatre production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Davis lived in South Carolina until she graduated from A.C. Flora High School in 1983. She then moved to New Jersey, where she attended Rutgers University. Davis graduated with a BFA degree in Acting from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1987. After graduation in 1987, Davis moved to New York and waited tables before opening a yoga studio with a friend. In 1991, she acted in a couple of episodes of the daytime drama (soap opera) General Hospital. Her big break came in 1995 when she landed the role of villainess Brooke Armstrong Campbell on the nighttime drama Melrose Place. She left the show after one year when producers decided to kill off the character. Davis also had roles in other television series including Friends, Will and Grace and Seinfeld. In 1998, Davis was cast as Charlotte York in Sex and the City and remained an integral cast member until the series ended in 2004. In 1999, along with the rest of the cast, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television. She received an Emmy nomination for her role as Charlotte in the final season. Davis's films include The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D, opposite David Arquette and George Lopez; the Walt Disney film The Shaggy Dog, opposite Tim Allen, and Deck the Halls, opposite Matthew Broderick. She performed in ABC Family channel's Christmas movie Three Days in 2001, and in a commercial for Head & Shoulders shampoo. --- In 2011, Davis adopted a daughter, Gemma Rose. They reside in Los Angeles, California. Davis is a recovering alcoholic. She says she was introduced to alcohol early as part of her Southern upbringing: "Alcohol freed me. I was really shy and I didn't know how to come out of my shell. I drank for the same reason I loved acting. I wanted to feel things and express myself and be free. And I'm not naturally that way." She went sober at the age of 22, later stating, "I miss it. You don't go to rehab and then suddenly it goes away."