Amazing Grace
Unknown Magazine/Robert Waldron

Y&R's Josie Davis has made it her passion to be taken seriously - inside and out

Josie Davis (Grace, Y&R) spent her adolescence playing nerdy teen Sarah Powell on the sitcom Charles in Charge. But in real life she was yearning to be a "hot chick." You know the type: drop-dead gorgeous, with a laid-back attitude that reads, "I'm destined for the passenger's seat in a Mercedes 450."

By the time Davis reached her early 20s, however, she came to appreciate a universal truth: A woman's beautiful looks can be so distracting that sometimes people don't to take the person inside seriously. And if there's one thing Davis wants in life it's to be taken seriously, particularly in her acting. She's so committed to her role as Sharon's longtime pal Grace that she makes it a point to refer to the character in the first-person. In discussing Grace's complicated relationship with bad-boy Tony, Davis says: "I'm sexually attracted to Tony. We had a great sex life. But we also share a mutual trust: He cares about me and I care about him."

For Davis, that close identification with Grace is vital. "I think it's extremely important. Otherwise, there's a separation between this character and who I am. For me, it's all one. Besides, she adds with a mischievous yet confident, smile, "they haven't given the part to anyone else. Right now, it's me."

But it almost wasn't. Davis was reluctant to tie herself down to a two-year contract last summer, wanting to leave her shedule open to pursue film work. After mulling things over, she opted for the security of a steady paycheck - and Davis happily discovered that Y&R gave her ample room to flex her acting muscles.

"This was been quite an experience," she maintains. "It's the most difficult acting I've ever done."

And despite her youth, the Los Angeles-born Davis has had plenty of performing experience, starting with a cereal commercial at the tender age of 4. Show business is in her blood. Father Jeff is an actor, drummer and photographer. "You can barely see the walls in my parents' home," says Davis, who grew up in Burbank, a stone's throw away from the NBC studios where DAYS and SUN tape. "My dad's a very good photographer and there are pictures everywhere!" Brother Josh is also a thespian.

Following her commercial debut, Davis made several other spot and guest starred on numerous primetime shows. In 1986, when she was 12, she landed the role of the perennially ponytailed Sarah on Charles in Charge, which she played until the show's cancellation in 1990.

The year Charles in Charge ended marked a pivotal point in Davis' personal life. She began her first serious romance, with Mike Rich Lopez, who played Nicole Eggert's boyfriend on the show.

"We were best friends for a year first, which I think is so important in a relationship," she says. Thanks to that foundation, Davis says Lopez saw her in a whole different light than the other woman he dated. "Instead of looking at me as a woman he wanted to get, Michael listened to me as a person," she explains. "He liked what I had to say and he respected me."

Last summer, Davis and Lopez ended the romance but continue to be friends. Currently, she's so busy with her front-burner storyline that she barely has time for a personal life. "Most days, I come home, memorize my lines for the next day's script and go to bed," she says.

This April, Davis' workload will increase when she tries her hand at film work again. She's appearing in a short film written by Lopez. "He's a good actor, but he hasn't been able to get an agent," she says. "So he said, 'Josie, we're going to have to write our own stuff.' He wrote us both parts. I'm looking forward to it."

In the meantime, Davis is practicing her craft in an acting class taught by Paul E. Richards, whom she credits with helping to develop her passion for her art. "I've been studying with him for five years," she says. "He's brilliant, and I don't use that term loosely."

She also studies dance, taking jazz and hip-hop classes on Saturdays. "My instructor is Michael Rooney, who's Mickey Rooney's son," she says. "He's a great teacher. He teaches dance the same way my acting teacher teaches acting. When Michael's choreographing a dance, he'll stop and say, 'I want you to do this with feeling. It's not just a step here and a step there,' which is also how it is with dialogue. You don't just say the lines, they come from what you're feeling. That's what makes it art."

And that's what makes Josie Davis more than just a pretty face.

ROBERT WALDRON