Viola was pregnant and decided that she needed to have an abortion. The experience was painful, and Viola felt guilty for doing it, but she did not have a choice, lacking the resources to raise a child. She graduated joyfully but did not get work right away, in spite of her agent supposedly being a good one. Living in a house with seven other Juilliard students, she realized the unglamorous reality that most artists live. In addition, she could not get cast in most roles because of her dark skin, while light-skinned Black women got romantic and other central roles when they auditioned. The Juilliard students had believed what the actors who had had the privilege of being successful had told them about the acting life, which had made them too hopeful. Most of it is luck, and, Davis reflects, you must take what you can get.

Viola’s living space felt too confining for her acting preparation, yet she was already struggling to make rent and pay for food. The first job she secured was as an understudy for a woman who was dying of cancer, another ugly reality of the world she lived in. Slowly, she began to get more auditions, but always for drug-addicted mothers, never for women described as pretty or romantic, even if the producers were Black.

After working wherever she could for a while, she auditioned for a role in Seven Guitars, a play by the famous Black playwright August Wilson. It was to be directed by the great Lloyd Richards. Viola practiced intensively. She wanted the role for herself, and so did the casting director. The audition was demanding, with Richards giving her a direction that opened up new aspects of her acting. She felt it had gone well, and she got the part. 

Seven Guitars was to be performed in Chicago. Viola traveled there, living a freezing but joyful life. The rehearsal process was a struggle because of an actor with Alzheimer’s, a heartbreaking experience. It was also exhausting because the script was still in development, with constant changes to learn. They took the play on a cross-country tour, ultimately opening it on Broadway, which lived up to Viola’s dreams. The adulation she received was stunning, and she was satisfied knowing it was earned. She was nominated for awards, and her career was blooming.

Yet Viola’s family situation took away from that happiness. Danielle had a teen pregnancy and began raising her son in poverty. Viola’s family started asking her for more and more money as her success grew. She felt that it was her responsibility to care for them. Over time, she began to realize that she needed therapy, but there were too many barriers to access. Finally, she started to get parts in movies and was able to find a therapist where she was staying in Los Angeles. Eventually, she was also able to obtain health insurance and to have her painful uterine fibroids removed. But she learned that she would only have a small window after her surgery to have a child, or she would become permanently infertile.

After her recovery, Viola got a job performing in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. This was a transformative experience for her. She was alone, working on herself in therapy but never having a partner. Her friend Joseph advised her to pray, and she began to, telling God exactly what she wanted. After Raisin, she got another movie job and went back to Los Angeles. Once more living in a poor apartment, she was sad and frustrated that she did not have a space, had never had a space, where she really felt safe.