Kristin Davis


 * This is an article about the actress; for the politician, see Kristin Davis (politician).

Kristin Landen Davis (also listed as Kristin Lee Davis; born February 24, 1965) is an American actress, known for playing the role of Charlotte York Goldenblatt on HBO's Sex and the City.

Early life and education
Davis was born in Boulder, Colorado. An only child, her parents divorced when she was a baby. She was adopted by her stepfather, 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 10, 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 bachelor's degree from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1987.

Television
After graduation in 1987, Davis moved to New York and waited tables before opening a yoga studio with a friend. IN 1991 she joined the cast of General Hospital for a couple of episodes. In 1995, she had her 'big break', landing the role of soap opera villainess Brooke Armstrong Campbell on Melrose Place. She left the show after one year when producers decided to kill the character off. 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. She received an Emmy nomination for her role in the final season.

Davis hosted the VH1 show 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons. In 2005, she starred in a television pilot entitled Soccer Moms in which she and Gina Torres star as suburban mothers who moonlight as private detectives. She also starred as Miss Spider in Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids and its spinoff Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.

Films
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.

Davis appeared in 2008's Sex and the City feature film, under the direction of executive producer Michael Patrick King. In 2009, Davis co-starred in Couples Retreat, a comedy chronicling four couples who partake in therapy sessions at a tropical island resort. Jon Favreau, who also wrote the script, played her husband.

Additional ventures
Shortly after the wide release of the Sex and the City feature film, in June 2008, Belk, the nation's largest privately owned department store chain, announced a partnership with Davis. The arrangement includes a ladies' apparel and accessories line that debuted in 2008 in 125 store locations and online, with eventual plans for expanding availability to other store locations. In Belk's press release about the product line launch, Davis cited her upbringing in South Carolina as part of her inspiration for working with the chain.

Personal life
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 in her mid-20s: "I miss it. You don’t go to rehab and then suddenly it goes away."

Davis currently resides in Los Angeles, California.