Davis was a Broadway actor who served as understudy for Danny Kaye and performed for him the musical Let's Face It! He also played a leading role in the Broadway hit Three to Get Ready. Davis served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War as B-17 bomber pilot.
Advocacy for world government
Pained by his own brother's war death and at the death he caused other families by bombing the city of Brandenburg in World War II, and fearful that nuclear war could terminate humanity, Davis gave up U.S. citizenship in 1948 and declared himself a "citizen of the world". He mentioned Henry Martyn Noel, who had renounced a few months earlier, as one of his inspirations. In France, his "Garry Davis Council of Solidarity" support committee was co-founded by writers Albert Camus and André Gide and Emmaus movement originator Abbé Pierre, as well as Robert Sarrazac, a former leader of the French Résistance who joined Davis in founding the Mundialization World Cities movement. Davis interrupted a session of the United Nations General Assembly on 19 November 1948, "We, the people, want the peace which only a world government can give," he proclaimed. "The sovereign states you represent divide us and lead us to the abyss of total war." Along with his support committee, he rallied over 15,000 people in Paris to demand that the UN recognize the rights of Humanity. Eleanor Roosevelt ridiculed his stunts in her My Day column as "flash-in-the-pan publicity". Davis founded the International Registry of World Citizens in Paris in January 1949, which registered over 750,000 individuals. On 4 September 1953 Davis formed an organisation, the World Government of World Citizens, with the stated aim of furthering fundamental human rights. He additionally formed the World Service Authority in 1954 as the government's executive and administrative agency, which issues its own fantasy passports – along with fantasy birth and other certificates – to customers. Davis first used his World Passport on a trip to India in 1956, and was allegedly admitted into some countries using it. Davis ran for mayor in Washington, D.C. in 1986 as the candidate of the "World Citizen Party" receiving 585 votes. He also declared himself as the World Citizen Party candidate for the 1988 US presidential election. Davis published multiple books in favor of his cause of world citizenship. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Davis issued and disbursed a world currency based on kilowatt hours of solar power produced, an idea proposed by Buckminster Fuller. These "kilowatt dollars" were the earliest documented emissions reduction currency. In March 2012 at age 90, Davis began broadcasting a weekly radio show, "World Citizen Radio", on the Global Radio Alliance.
In 2012, Davis sent WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a World Passport. Only weeks before he died, Davis sent a World Passport to whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow in care of the Russian authorities.
Death
Davis entered hospice care on 18 July 2013, and died six days later in the municipality of South Burlington, Vermont, aged 91. He is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Kristina Starr Davis; two sons, Troy and Kim; and a daughter, Athena Davis from his third marriage; a sister, Ginia Davis Wexler; a brother, Emery; and a granddaughter Emma Meluta.
