Reginald Hudlin reached a major milestone in his career when he recently received a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis International Film Festival.
ST. LOUIS — An East St. Louis native reached a major milestone in his career when he recently received a lifetime achievement award from the St. Louis International Film Festival.
Director and producer Reginald Hudlin credits his Missouri upbringing for being a better storyteller in Hollywood.
Having a film career spanning more than three decades, Hudlin said he’s surprisingly never attended the St. Louis International Film Festival before this year.
However coming home to St. Louis was made just a little bit more memorable with a SLIFF Lifetime Achievement Award to sit beside his Oscar and Emmy nominations.
“When you get a lifetime achievement award, it feels like that’s an acknowledgment of your body of work,” Hudlin said. “Like you know what, you keep doing things that are not embarrassing. They don’t suck, and, in fact, we like them.”
It’s quite the body of work for Hudlin, a proud East St. Louis native.
Whether that’s one of his first hits, “House Party” in 1990 or his latest to-be-released movie “Candy Cane Lane” on Amazon Prime with comedic icon Eddie Murphy.
Not to mention, the football drama “Safety” on Disney+ and another classic “Boomerang” starring Murphy again, Chris Rock and Halle Berry.
SLIFF executive director Bree Maniscalco said Hudlin received the award because he has “reached across and done documentaries. He’s done a series with Oprah about African American males and the role that they play as fathers, filmmakers and actors. That has been incredible.
“He’s directed award shows. He’s also done animated works not just on the big screen but through comic books. They way that he’s getting the youth interested in paper book and then on the screen it’s incredible.”
Hudlin said being from the Midwest helped him get his name in lights, and being around hardworking people was crucial.
His advice for aspiring St. Louis filmmakers is to lean into technology and use their smartphones.
“You can film your own movie and cut it together,” Hudlin said. “You have all this stuff in your pocket. We didn’t have that when I was a kid. We didn’t have pockets when we were kids. So you’ve got all this stuff right in your pocket.”
St. Louis International Film Festival closes out its annual event with a celebration Nov. 19 at the Hi-Pointe Theatre. A Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to veteran Hollywood figure and East St. Louis native Reginald Hudlin.
Cinema St. Louis executive director Bree Maniscalco and Hudlin’s longtime friend Lyah LeFlore-Ituen present the award, and I will sit with Hudlin for a live conversation about his noteworthy career.
Director, producer and writer Hudlin, the first Black executive producer of the Emmys as well as a co-producer of the Academy Awards in 2016, first made his mark in the industry producing music videos and making short films in the 1980s.
Hudlin made his directorial debut with “House Party” (1990) and has been busy ever since, from “Boomerang” to “Django Unchained,” “The Great White Hype” to “The Ladies Man,” “Bebe’s Kids” to “The Black Godfather.”
His latest movie “Candy Cane Lane,” starring Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross, is his first Christmas flick, streaming Dec. 1 on Prime Video.
Here, we spotlight 8 essential Hudlin projects.
Kid ‘n Play in “House Party” | Courtesy of St. Louis International Film Festival
“House Party”
1990, director, writer
Hudlin scored big with his directorial debut, a cult classic with rap duo Kid ‘n Play at the center of a wild high school house party. The Library of Congress added “House Party” to its National Film Registry in 2022, the same year a reboot of the movie was released.
Watch “House Party” on Pluto TV, Prime Video.
“Boomerang”
1992, director
Hudlin ventured into adult rom-com fare with “Boomerang,” starring Eddie Murphy as a successful playboy who meets his match in a woman portrayed by Robin Givens, while later finding happiness with his true love played by Halle Berry. The movie was rebooted as a TV series on BET, which ran a couple of seasons beginning in 2019.
Watch “Boomerang” on Prime Video.
“Bebe’s Kids”
1992, writer, producer
Forever etched in urban lingo is the term “Bebe’s Kids,” used to describe a group of really bad young children. The term was taken from Hudlin’s animated movie “Bebe’s Kids” about a man voiced by comedian Robin Harris charged with watching a group of unruly children during an amusement park outing.
Watch it on Prime Video, Pluto TV.
Tim Meadows in “The Ladies Man” (2000). Handout
“The Ladies Man”
2000, director
Hudson successfully took a “Saturday Night Live” skit, not an easy thing to do, and fleshed it out to full-length feature with “The Ladies Man” starring Tim Meadows.
Watch it on Prime Video.
“Django Unchained”
2012, co-producer
Hudlin co-produced this epic, gloriously violent Oscar-nominated western directed by Quentin Tarantino about a freed slave out to rescue his wife from a plantation owner starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson.
Chadwick Boseman (left) and Sterling K. Brown in “Marshall” | Courtesy of Open Road Films
“MARSHALL”
2017, director, producer
Boasting a cast that included Chadwick Boseman, St. Louis native Sterling K. Brown, Kate Hudson and Josh Gad, “Marshall” looked at an early career chapter of historic figure Thurgood Marshall, the State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell, before he’d go on to become the first Black Supreme Court Justice.
Watch it on Netflix and Prime Video.
Guy Torry in “Phat Tuesdays” | Courtesy of Amazon Studios
“Phat Tuesdays: The Era of Hip Hop Comedy”
2022, director, producer
“Phat Tuesdays: The Era of Hip Hop Comedy” is a three-part docuseries detailing Phat Tuesdays, which was a night giving new opportunities to Black comics at the famed Comedy Store in Los Angeles from 1995 to 2005. St. Louis native Guy Torry created and hosted Phat Tuesdays, which helped change the culture of comedy.
Watch it on Prime Video.
“Sidney”
2022, director, producer
Teaming up with producer Oprah Winfrey, Hudlin presented a touching tribute honoring the life and legacy of the Oscar-winning Sidney Poitier, one of the greatest actors to ever live. Among the A-list participants in the documentary are Robert Redford, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Morgan Freeman, Halle Berry, Lou Gossett Jr., Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand and most notably Poitier himself.
Watch it on Apple TV+.
The closing night event also features SLIFF’s juried-competition awards, music from Trackstar the DJ and more.
What St. Louis International Film Festival’s Closing Night Awards Presentation • When 6:30 p.m. Nov. 19 • Where Hi-Pointe Theatre, 1005 McCausland Avenue • How much $5 • More infocinemastlouis.org/sliff/festival-home
Media executive Clarence Avant attends the world premiere of “The Black Godfather,” a documentary about his life, at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on June 3, 2019. (Mark Von Holden / Invision / Associated Press)
With the passing of media executive Clarence Avant on Monday, Hollywood lost an industry magnate whose impact and reach was unquantifiable.
Avant rose to prominence in post-Prohibition New York City, where he met talent manager Joseph G. Glaser, who taught him the ins and outs of the music business. He would go on to be known as the godfather of the industry, shaping the careers of nascent icons like Bill Withers and Hank Aaron and countless others.
“The joy of his legacy eases the sorrow of our loss,” his family said in a statement announcing his passing.
Avant was a man of principles at a time when Hollywood sought to exploit and discard Black talent. He rose from humble pastoral beginnings to become a man about town in an industry where Black people weren’t afforded such prominent positions.
He was foul-mouthed and brusque, a demeanor that was incongruous with his role in Hollywood as a staunch advocate for Black artists, maintaining throughout his decades-long career a reputation for integrity and fairness in an industry infamous for its lack of both.
“He had an innate sense of goodness and fairness and was able to have the drive and willpower to succeed without compromising his values, and use that success to help more people,” said filmmaker Reginald Hudlin, who profiled Avant in the 2019 Netflix documentary “The Black Godfather.”
The source list for the documentary is itself a testament to Avant’s reach and impact and includes two former presidents (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton), Vice President Kamala Harris, and music and entertainment icons including Withers, Aaron, Quincy Jones, Jim Brown, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Clive Davis, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Jamie Foxx, David Geffen, Berry Gordy, Jesse Jackson, Benny Medina, Ludacris, L.A. Reid, Lionel Richie, Al Sharpton, Cicely Tyson, Snoop Dogg and others.
Hudlin first met Avant at the airport when he first came to Hollywood to broker his first movie deal. “His reputation so preceded him,” said Hudlin. “I mean, he was like Zeus. There’s powerful people, then there’s the gods of Mt. Olympus and then there’s the god of the gods. And that’s who Clarence was.”
Here, Hudlin discusses Avant’s influence, legacy and impact on music history:
From left, Quincy Jones, Jacqueline Avant and Clarence Avant attend a Netflix reception for the documentary “13th” on Jan. 15, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Eric Charbonneau/Invision/Associated Press)
Where did the idea to make the documentary come from? What moment or experience inspired that?
All of us who had been mentored and inspired by Clarence had been trying to convince him to write a book for years. And he would gruffly rebuff such suggestions. His daughter Nicole had decided [from] when she was 8 years old that one day she would make a movie about her father’s life, so she convinced her dad to do a documentary. And then she asked him, “Well, who do you want to make the movie?” Clarence thought for a second and said, “I like Reggie. Call him.” And when I got the call, it was one of the all-time great honors. It was a papal order. So it was an incredible honor and [I was] very happy to do it.
Can you describe the process of gathering sources for the documentary?
Well, Clarence knows everyone. Nicole had a long list of people who she knew we needed to talk to and it was a spectacular list, and we were happy to start that process. And pretty much at the end of every interview, the subject would say, “Hey, have you talked to …?” And then they would name three people. Those three people would not be on any previous list and none of them had any relationship to each other, nor was there any obvious connection to Clarence. But they would insist, “Oh, you need to call them.” And we would do so and that would just repeat over and over again. And you realize that the network of friends, the network of relationships of Clarence Avant is so vast and so eclectic. It’s impossible to fully know the depth of the man other than he’s brilliant, he’s honorable, he’s all these truly wonderful things.
Would you say it was easy to get people to talk?
Everyone was grateful for an opportunity to testify on behalf of Clarence. I mean people who regularly turn down interviews [were like] “Oh, it’s Clarence, well that’s different.”
When’s the last time you spoke to him?
A couple of weeks ago. He had been staying with his daughter Nicole and her husband Ted [Sarandos]. And I called and said, “Boy, I would love to see Clarence.” We arranged a time and we all got together and it was lovely. It was great to see him again. It’s a family environment, laughing and talking politics and culture and everything and it was just great. I really am so grateful that I had that one last visit. I would be destroyed right now if I didn’t have that last memory.
What about his personality and business sense made him stand out in Hollywood in the entertainment industry?
I think what made him truly unique in the industry is this combination of bluntness, honesty and integrity. He was a person for whom his word was his bond. He said what he thought, he said it in a way that there was no ambiguity about what he thought. And his innate sense of fairness is what made his dealmaking possible. He wasn’t trying to get over on people, he was like, “Here’s an outcome that is fair for all parties.” And he was respected and sought out because of that unique combination of qualities.
The entertainment industry is notorious for lacking those traits: integrity, fairness, honor. So how was someone like Clarence, who was by all accounts an outsider, able to thrive by exhibiting those qualities?
Because he was that and he wouldn’t fold in that regard, it made him valuable because you could trust he’s going to be honest and he’s going to be fair. And you would think, “Why don’t more people function that way?” That’s a whole other sociological question.
And there were these other amazing qualities: the fact that he had unique taste. So many of his greatest successes were acts that people didn’t understand. Bill Withers got passed on by every record label. And he said, “No, no, no, I understand this. I relate to this. I get this.” And he was not scared to stand behind something that he believed in. And Bill Withers turned out to be the great artist that he saw and others didn’t.
Clarence’s demeanor is incongruous with the role he played in Hollywood. He’s foul-mouthed and gruff but was actually pure-intentioned and looking out for everybody that he encountered. Do you think his demeanor was meant as a form of protection?
Well, yes, I think it was a protective shield. I think he was a bit of a porcupine. But also he grew up in a rough-and-tumble era, he grew up as a sharecropper. He worked in these after-hours nightclubs. It’s a really tough environment. You couldn’t be a punk in those situations. But those environments never compromised his integrity as a person. And that combination was special and made him invaluable.
How would you break down his presence and influence on music history?
He understood the value of entertainment. He understood the value of stardom. He built Black institutions, he supported Black institutions. And as Black music went from something that was widely influential but never fully respected, he was a prime driver in the movement to take Black music to its proper place as the mainstream of popular entertainment on a global basis.
There was a period where, if you were a Black executive working in the music business, you were there because Clarence Avant placed you there. And the number of artists, managers, executives, people in every aspect of the business, of every race, of every gender, who went to Clarence for advice, he was a guiding light … he was a lighthouse for so many people.
When we were making the movie, we were trying to calculate OK, if you think about all the fortunes he helped make, can we actually put a dollar number to the ripple effect of what Clarence did? And we quickly gave up. There was just no way. If you look at sports, entertainment, politics, all these different worlds he affected, his effect is literally immeasurable.
Do you think another figure like Clarence could exist in the entertainment industry today?
[Laughs] First of all, it’s really unfair to relegate Clarence to entertainment. His impact on politics was huge. There were so many areas that he touched, but I don’t know that they make men like Clarence Avant anymore. History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. So there’s a lot of people who were touched by Clarence who aspire to live to the values that he espoused. So in that sense, he has many, many children beyond his son and his daughter. There’s all these men who look at him as a father figure.
And there’s a lot of people who, once they heard about him, either through reputation or through the movie, are like “Oh, that’s another way of being successful, being impactful.” You don’t have to be a celebrity, you don’t have to weasel your way into every deal. Sometimes you do the right thing because the right thing is the thing to do. There’s a lot of people who aspire to those values and that is an extraordinary legacy.
How do you think the entertainment and political landscape might look if he had never come to Hollywood?
It’s literally unimaginable. When you think about him cold-calling Andy Young, who he had never met and saying, “Are you really running for Congress in Georgia as a Black man?” “Yes, sir.” He goes, “Well if you’re crazy enough to do that, I’m crazy enough to back you.” So when you think about the importance of just that one phone call, and [Avant] putting together a huge fundraising concert for [Young] to go to Congress and then from Congress became the mayor of Atlanta and Atlanta being the financial and cultural center that it is, and then [Young] being at the U.N. on behalf of President Jimmy Carter and all the things that he’s doing today, that’s just one man that [Avant] touched. And that one man had a gigantic impact on the rest of the world. And just keep multiplying that.
Here’s Hank Aaron, who’s about to break Babe Ruth’s record. And he’s getting death threats daily. And this is old-time Atlanta; you’ve got to take these death threats seriously. And [Clarence] stepped in and said, “We’re going to make sure you’re financially comfortable for the rest of your life by using this opportunity properly.” And him being the aggressive dealmaker to get Hank Aaron the fair endorsements that he deserved. And then Hank Aaron taking all the business lessons he learned from Clarence over the years and becoming an incredibly successful businessman, and then taking that business success and giving away so many millions through his charitable organizations. We just named two people who in turn touched thousands of people. And you could just go on and on naming case study after case study of how he touched someone’s life who was transformative, and then turned around and did it themselves.
How much do you think his impact was a matter of the time period in which he was born?
Well, this is the question you ask of any great person. Do the times make the man or does the man make the time? So you just have to say Clarence was a unique product of his moment. With that being said, are there great people before him? Yes. Will there be great people after him? Yes, of course, there will always be champions that will emerge out of the unique circumstances and they will meet the moment, whatever that moment is. Because the fact is, Clarence met the moment of the era he grew up in. And there’s a person in a crib today, who will meet the moment of 20 years from now.
1. Here’s an early article about HOUSE PARTY (1991).
2. Here’s a story and photographs of me and my Harvard classmate Jonathan Mostow, director of BREAKDOWN, U -571 and TERMINATOR 3, who invited me to serve on the DGA Creative Council.
3. Here’s a story about me participating in Model UN back in high school.
