Ernie Hudson

As a child growing up in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Ernie Hudson wrote short stories, poems and songs, always thinking that his words might one day come to life on stage. After a short stint in the Marine Corps, he moved to Detroit where he became the resident playwright at Concept East, the oldest black theatre in the country. In addition, he enrolled at Wayne State University to further develop his writing and acting skills and found time to establish the Actors’ Emsemble Theatre, where he and other talented young black writers directed and appeared in their own works.
After graduating with a B.A. from Wayne State, he was rewarded a full scholarship to the M.F.A. program at the prestigious Yale School of Drama. While performing with the school’s repertory company, he was asked to appear in the Los Angeles production of Lonne Elder III’s musical “Daddy Goodness,” which led to his meeting Gordon Parks, who gave Hudson the costarring role in his first feature film, Leadbelly. Unfortunately, all that followed “Leadbelly” was a year of “bit parts and some harsh lessons about Hollywood,” which led Hudson to enroll in another academic doctorate program at the University of Minnesota. He did not complete the program.

Through his experience, he learned another vital lesson: “There are those who spend their lives studying it and those who spend their lives doing it.” Hudson definitely wanted to be in the second group. Keeping in mind this self-revelation, Hudson accepted the starring role of Jack Jefferson in the Minneapolis Theatre In The Round’s production of “The Great White Hope,” a role that he put “everything he had into,” including shaving his head. A series of starring and guest roles followed on such television shows as Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk, Little House on the Prairie, Diff’rent Strokes, Taxi, One Day at a Time, Gimme a Break!, The A-Team and Webster, as well as costarring roles in the TV movies White Mama with Bette Davis, Roots: The Next Generations, Women of San Quentin, California Girls, Mad Bull and Love on the Run. Other feature film credits include The Jazz Singer, The Main Event, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Penitentiary II, Going Berserk, Joy of Sex and, of course, the mega-hit Ghostbusters.