Biography: Kevin R. Davis
Biography: Kevin R. Davis
Personal. I was born in Milwaukee of Irish Catholic parents. After my father died in an automobile accident when I was age 5,leaving my mother with five young children, wemoved to Delavan, Wisconsin (population 5,000) where she spent the rest of her life working to support and raise me, my brother and three sisters. Her secretary’s salary was meager and we were always below the poverty line.We receivedbaskets of food around Christmas or a turkey at Thanksgiving from Goodwill and Oddfellows. We were a rambunctious bunch of kids and I was the worst. I developed a wanderlust in my adolescencebut with no money, took to hitchhiking to explore Wisconsin andlater on, in my teens, the rest of the country. Without money, I slept in unlocked cars or Salvation Army shelters (and once in a jail). To this day, I contribute regularly to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Following high school graduation, I married my sweetheart and we soon became the parents of our first son.
Educational.Though my older brother and sister dropped out of high school before finishing, I did well and with the highest IQ in my class, had been a subject in a research program atthe University of Wisconsin where I was admitted on scholarship. I carried heavy credit loads and finished in 7 semesters, earning a B.S. Degree with majors in mathematics and psychology and an inadvertent minor in English from the numerous creative writing courses I took for enjoyment.Extracurricular activities included golden gloves boxing, fencing, sailingand drama as well as continuing (from high school) with trumpet and guitar, forming small semi-professional bands of my own.
Professional. After graduating from the U of W, I worked for IBM in Madison, selling large, mainframe computers. My literary creativity turned toward movies and, after completing a postgraduate course in screenwriting and finishing my first movie script, at age 24 I packed myself and my family off to Hollywood. There I got a part-time job afternoons as a computer systems analyst in the Space & Communications Lab of Hughes Aircraft Company, leaving my mornings free for writing and other theatrical interests. Also, I took the $3,500 termination bonus from IBM and used it as a down payment on the purchase of a 6-bungalow property, into which I moved with my family. The story of my life since then has been one of balancing between those two different activities, apartment investment (which has earned my income) and screenwriting (my creative outlet). Over the years, I have written a dozen scripts, two of which have been made into feature films ( “The Hoax” and “Fatal Inheritance”) and have owned over a thousand units in the greater Los Angeles area and in Houston, Texas.Currently, my real estate activityis scaled smaller and I focus on owning boutique properties in Beverly Hills.I am alsoa patented inventor with a folding tripod stool licensed to an outdoor chair manufacturing company that is being sold in sporting goods stores across the country and on the Internet.
Professional Memberships. I am a member of the following professional organizations:
Writers Guild of America
Screen Actors Guild
Actors’ Equity
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Federation of Musicians
Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles
California Apartment Association
Charitable Memberships.I am a member of or contributor to the following socially conscious organizations:
Amnesty International (since the mid-1970s)
Center for the Victims of Torture
Free the Slaves
CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking)
South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (though I’m not black)
Women for Women International (though I’m not a woman)
World Affairs Council of Los Angeles
MENSA
Union of Concerned Scientists
United Friends of the Children
El Nido Family Centers of Los Angeles
Childreach/Plan International
Through this last-mentioned organization, Childreach/Plan International, I have sponsored “foster” children in the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I have made multiple trips to China, where I have visited the families of three of my foster children, and to the Philippines, where I have visited two of them. (My early wanderlust has become a lifelong passion for travel and I have been to more than 50 countries, many of them 3rd-world and including most communist countries.)
I am a directoron the board of Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) which combats those activities nationwide.
I am a past director (for 6 years) on the board of El Nido Family Centers, a charitable organization which aids young families in crisis through counseling and scholarships, the oldest (80 years) and largest (150 staff and counselors) such organization serving the greater Los Angeles area.I am a past director (for 5 years)on the board of Southern Area Fostercare Effort (“SAFE”), a charitable organization which aids youngsters who have grown up in, and are being emancipated from, the county foster care systems in Southern California.
Incidentally, my marriage ended in divorce and I now have 3 sons and 3 granddaughters.
Kevin R. Davis 456 South Spalding DriveBeverly HillsCalifornia90212-4104