Hudson was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of Maggie Donald,[1] who died of tuberculosis when Hudson was four months old; Hudson never knew his father. He was subsequently raised by his maternal grandmother, Arrana Donald.[2] He has a half-brother, Lewis Hudson. After a short time in the Marine Corps, he moved to Detroit where he became the resident playwright at Concept East, the oldest Black Theatre company 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' Ensemble Theatre where he and other talented young black writers directed and appeared in their own works, before enrolling and subsequently graduating from Yale School of Drama.[2]
Career
Hudson played Winston Zeddemore, a firefighter who enlists with the Ghostbusters in the 1984 film Ghostbusters and its 1989 sequel (he auditioned to reprise the role for the animated series but lost to Arsenio Hall), as well as Warden Leo Glynn on HBO's Oz. On Oz, his son Ernie Hudson Jr. co-starred with him as Muslim inmate Hamid Khan. He appeared as the character, Munro, in Congo and he starred in the 1994 film The Crow as Sergeant Albrecht. He switched gears when he played a preacher opening the eyes of a small town prejudice in the 50s in Stranger in the Kingdom. He is also known as Harry McDonald, the FBI superior of Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. One of Mr. Hudson's early films was in Penitentiary in the late 1970s starring Leon Isaac Kennedy. He was also in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Ethon" as Pernaux. He had a major supporting role as the mentally challenged Solomon in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. He was on the TV series Fantasy Island as a voodoo man named Jamu in season 1. Hudson also appeared as Reggie in the film Basketball Diaries alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.
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