Jasmine Davila, 1976 - 2052

Note: As written for Miss Spoken, a lady-centric live lit show that takes place on the fourth Monday of the month at Cole’s Bar in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The theme of the March 2026 show was JASMINE. Yes, I tweaked it a little after performing.

Jasmine, Vicountess Pemberley was born Jasmine Davila on March 30, 1976 in Quezon City, Philippines. The second of five children born to Jose and Arline Davila, she was preceded in birth by her sister, Joseline. The family moved to California upon her father’s assignment to the Naval Station in Lemoore when Jasmine was a year old. She was four when the family was stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

The four years spent living in Okinawa, during which time the family expanded with the birth of brother Patrick, were the happiest in Jasmine’s life. She was an enthusiastic student at Bob Hope Primary School on Kadena Air Base, where she learned sumo wrestling, how to make an origami samurai helmet out of a newspaper, and how to get an extra iced coffee out of the vending machine that was on the route leading to the school bus stop. That particular victory was short-lived when her parents made her understand that six year olds should not be chugging 12 ounces of iced coffee to start the day. Jasmine frequently brought her father to school for show and tell so he could make Filipino food for her entire class.

When her father’s stint in the Navy ended in 1984, the family emigrated to Queens, New York, just like Prince Akeem in the movie Coming to America. The family was complete in 1986 with the birth of fraternal twins, sister Jacqueline and brother Justin.

Though Jasmine attended several schools in the New York City Public School System throughout the 1980s, she completed her primary and secondary education at The Brearley School. It was there that Jasmine first encountered actual WASP’s, learned that there were people who used the word “summer” and “winter” as verbs, and discovered a love of playing field hockey, badminton, floor hockey, and pickleball. She wasn’t a gifted athlete; rather, she enjoyed hitting things with sticks, rackets, and clubs. Also, she did theater and played bells in the school handbell choir, which did little to endear her to the few teenage boys she encountered during this time.

After Brearley, she matriculated at The University of Chicago where she majored in something called “General Studies in the Humanities”. This was probably not the smartest decision she could have made, but as she was legally and technically an adult, nobody could have stopped her. Alas, she graduated without honors of any kind, but did enjoy participating in extracurricular activities like judging the university-wide scavenger hunt and writing a fake advice column for the school’s second most popular student-run newspaper.

Despite this creative approach to higher education, Jasmine succeeded in finding full time employment after graduation. It was, after all, the late 1990s, when the economy was booming and tech companies were not always picky about who they hired to answer the phones to assist anyone from elderly retirees in Fort Lauderdale to coked up day traders in Chicago and New York City. The textbook definition of a “personality hire”, Jasmine survived several rounds of layoffs at several high profile corporations in the financial technology sector. In addition to working in finance, Jasmine was an amateur petsitter (for money) and wrote a great deal of smutty fan fiction (not for money, unfortunately).

Jasmine began performing in live lit shows in her mid-thirties, eventually assuming responsibility of the award-winning live lit show Miss Spoken in the mid 2010’s. As a co-producer and co-host, she and legendary Tony award winning director and dramaturg Amy Eaton brought Miss Spoken out of the back room of Cole’s Bar and out of Chicago, first to the Edinburgh Fringe, then to a three year run in London’s West End, and five years on Broadway, where it set the record for number of Tonys won by a single production. Along with Miss Spoken co-founders, comedy legend and current host of “The Tonight Show” Carly Oishi and New York Times bestselling author Rosamund Lannin, Jasmine and Amy directed and produced “Miss Spoken: What’s Lit Got to Do With It”. It is the highest rated concert film of all time on IMDb. The second volume of Jasmine’s three-part memoir, “Dude, Where’s My Foot?”, was adapted for the stage and screen, winning Tonys for best play and best performance for actress in a leading role, an Oscar for best adapted screenplay, and a Razzie for worst new star (which was given to the foot, not Jasmine).

Jasmine was devoutly, chronically single until her early 50s when, after a brief but intense whirlwind romance, she “consciously coupled” with a performance artist who worked under the mononym Yakult. Yakult was the stage name of Georges Rothschild-Wickham, 9th Viscount Pemberley. During their marriage, they split their time among a bungalow in Chicago, a loft in New York, and a cottage in Fowey, Cornwall, England. The relationship was received with some controversy, as they met when the Viscount subscribed to the Viscountess’s account on Only Stumps, the premiere paid subscription service of amputee pornographic creators.

The Viscount and Viscountess hosted friends, family, and even the occasional frenemy for extended visits at Manderley, the Wickham family seat in Cornwall. Together, the Rothschild-Wickhams spent most of their time and energy giving away as much of their fortune as possible. Their estate funds the Gregory A. Doumanian, MD Professorship in Plastic Surgery at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, so named after the doctor who developed targeted muscle reinnervation, the procedure which allows amputees such as the Viscountess to live free from phantom pain. The school also hosts the late Viscountess’s collection of prosthetic limbs, many of which were designed and fabricated by artists and sculptors such as Kerry James Marshall, Kehinde Wiley, and Hebru Brantley.

Along with noted philanthropist and arts educator Jacinda Bauman of Oak Park, Illinois, she co-founded Jacinda & Jasmine’s Old Friends Sanctuary and Dispensary, a housing cooperative for low income elderly people that was also home to several dozen dogs, cats, pigs, otters, horses, wolves, foxes, and hedgehogs.

Jasmine died on September 30, 2052, days after being attacked by a rabid Eurasian eagle owl who was preying upon a litter of puppies who had just been born in the forest behind her mansion. She was able to humanely destroy the eagle owl, as well as provide names and find adopters for the puppies she saved before succumbing to her injuries. She was 76 years old.

Jasmine was preceded in death by her late husband, Georges and her parents, Jose and Arline.

She is survived by her lovers, the actors François Arnaud and Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and the current cast of Magic Mike Live. She is also survived by her siblings, as well as the offspring of friends whom she counts as honorary nieces, nephews, godsons, goddaughters

A funeral Mass will be performed on Thanksgiving Day, the late Viscountess’s favorite holiday. A three day celebration of life is planned for the period leading up to New Year’s Day at Manderley, culminating in a variety show headlined by a selection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Winners and hosted by a hologram of Mariah Carey.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a tax deductible donation to The Viscountess Jasmine Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent Academy and All You Can Buffet.