Reginald Hudlin

It is not often in the 25 years after graduation that a Harvard student’s senior thesis actually goes anywhere besides the University’s archives.

But the honors thesis of Reginald “Reggie” A. Hudlin ’83 didn’t end up in Pusey. Instead, the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) concentrator’s 20-minute video thesis, an original version of the 1990 Sundance Film Festival award-winning “House Party,” launched Hudlin’s successful Hollywood directing career, culminating in his 2005 appointment as president of Black Entertainment Television (BET), a leading black cable network.

“There was no real logical reason to think any of it would happen,” Hudlin wrote of his success in a recent e-mail. “But if I didn’t make it, I would probably end up in a job that required a tie. And that was not an option.”

Looking back at his time at Harvard, Hudlin said that the VES department took a “very different approach” than most film schools. “It made you strip all the artifice out of your projects, and that’s a healthy place to start,” he said.

Hudlin credits the Harvard social scene in his quest for self-discovery.

“I was a middle class nerd in my home town of East St. Louis,” Hudlin said. “I never really understood how ghetto I was until I talked with my black Harvard classmates.”

But it was Hudlin’s ability to retain a connection to his hometown that set him apart, according to Senior Admissions Officer David L. Evans, a man Hudlin says had a “big impression on him” in his College years.

“Harvard didn’t wash away his roots, his East St. Louis roots,” Evans said.

According to Evans, the rising director “kept his head screwed on right” as he and his brother, Warrington W. Hudlin Jr., found success in the film industry.

“I knew he was stable and able, and given the chance, he’d come to the table,” the admissions officer said.

Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, who was at Yale with Hudlin’s brother, said he knew the VES concentrator as “Warrington’s kid brother who was doing film at Harvard.”

Since those days, Gates says his work with the BET president—who frequently returns to Harvard to discuss film—has convinced him that Hudlin is an “intellectual genius,” a “triple threat,” and a “pioneer.”

“Reggie is to film as Quincy Jones is to the history of black music, meaning that Reggie is both a brilliant creative artist, and a brilliant businessperson and entrepreneur,” he said.

Hudlin’s freshman year roommate, Malcolm K. Robinson ’83, said that from the beginning, Hudlin’s creative talents were anything but inconspicuous.

“It’s not surprising to any of us that he ended up being a filmmaker,” Robinson said, adding that Hudlin’s sense of humor was one of his greatest assets.

“Some of the things he used to joke about made it to his scripts. I remember saying to myself, ‘he used to tell that joke when we were in college,’” Robinson said.

And as a graduate of the College, Hudlin says he still finds himself surrounded by a number of coworkers from other Ivy Leagues. “But I still get teased about being a Harvard grad,” he joked, “’cause they’re haters.”

—Staff writer Charles J. Wells can be reached at wells2@fas.harvard.edu.