At the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 5, actor Viola Davis won in the category Best Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording for the audiobook of her memoir “Finding Me.”
Davis beat out other theater talent in her category; Lin-Manuel Miranda was nominated for “Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World,” and Mel Brooks was recognized for his memoir, “All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business.” The category also included Questlove for “Music Is History” and Jamie Foxx for “Act Like You Got Some Sense.”
The award marked Davis’ first Grammy win (and her first nomination). She has previously won two Tonys, one Oscar and one Emmy Award. She is now the 18th artist ever to achieve EGOT status.
Davis received the first of the four major awards, a Tony, in 2001 for her performance as Tonya in the Broadway premiere of August Wilson’s “King Hedley II.” Davis later earned an additional Tony for her turn as Rose in the 2010 revival of Wilson’s “Fences”; she picked up an Oscar in 2017 for her reprisal of that role on-screen. In between, she won a 2015 Emmy for her portrayal of Annalise Keating in the series “How to Get Away with Murder.”
Davis, all three of whose Broadway credits are plays written by Wilson, was also Tony-nominated for her 1996 Broadway-debut turn in his “Seven Guitars.” She was nominated for the Emmy four more times (from 2016-2019) for “How to Get Away with Murder.” Davis also garnered Oscar nods in 2009 for “Doubt,” 2012 for “The Help” and 2021 for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” — another Wilson play adapted into a feature film.
Davis is also a three-time Drama Desk Award winner, with trophies for “King Hedley II” and “Fences” as well as Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel.”
In her acceptance speech for the 2023 Grammy win, Davis said of her memoir, “I wrote this book to honor the six-year-old Viola. To honor her life, her joy, her trauma, everything. And it has just been such a journey. I just EGOT!” She continued, “My loves Julius, Genesis, you are my life, my joy. You are the best chapter in my book. Thank you!”
