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. ==Early life and education [edit] ==

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. ==Personal life [edit] ==

Oxfam Ambassador Davis visits Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.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."

Davis's love of elephants propelled her to visit Africa in 2009, when she discovered an abandoned baby elephant and arranged for him to be taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center. In recognition of the attention she has brought to the plight of orphaned African elephants, Davis won the Humane Society's 2010 Wyler Award, which is bestowed on a celebrity or public figure who has made news on behalf of animals.