J. Gunnis Davis

Biography

Joseph G Davis first saw the light of day on December 21, 1873, in Sunderland, Tyne-and-Wear, England, cradled by a family steeped in the arts. His father, Alfred Davis, and mother, Janet Gunnis—her name a legacy of her own heritage—raised him amid the rhythms of the stage. In January 1904, he set sail on the SS New York, departing Southampton on January 2 and docking in New York Harbor eight days later. Aboard the ship were Joseph, then 30, an actor, and his wife, Mary Isabel Davis, 27, a performer who’d once graced the stage as Mary Denton-Cardew and Mary Andrews, her true name Mary Isabel Michael. Known professionally as James G Davis and J Gunnis-Davis, he carved a niche in the American theater world. His wife, a woman of reinvention, had entered two prior marriages before theirs. Together, they welcomed a son on June 7, 1906, in New York City—James Irving John Gunnis-Davis, who would grow up as Jack G Davis. J Gunnis-Davis’s journey ended on March 23, 1937, in Los Angeles, California. He rests now in Hollywood Memorial Cemetery, his life’s curtain call marked by the city’s golden glow.