MINNEAPOLIS _ In his backpack and jumpsuit, Ernie Hudson blasted his way into pop-culture consciousness as one of the original Ghostbusters.
Working beside a team of three nerd geniuses battling metaphysical marauders, he was the street-smart everyman. Now Hudson, 70, is revisiting the film's loyal fan base in the new all-female "Ghostbusters" reboot, which reunites him with other key cast members for surprise cameos.
"I've always been very proud to be part of the franchise," he said, even though much of the attention has often focused on his better-known co-stars. Still, Hudson had a contingent of Midwestern fans that none of the others could equal.
Long before zapping supernatural spooks with his proton gun, Hudson had a high profile connection with Twin Cities theatergoers, a connection so strong that Minnesota has been his home base for the past 40 years.
Hudson grew up on welfare in a housing project in Benton Harbor, Mich., acting in high school and writing plays for his church. After establishing an actors ensemble in college to support black playwrights and performers, he won a full scholarship to the prestigious Master of Fine Arts Program at Yale University while Meryl Streep was there, becoming his "acting crush."
When his first marriage ended in his late 20s and his two young sons came to live with him, Hudson enrolled in a University of Minnesota postgraduate program. He dropped out after a few semesters to star in a Minneapolis production of "The Great White Hope." He considers his months of extended performances as Jack Johnson, America's first black heavyweight boxing champion, to be the foundation of his career _ "a good role in an amazing piece of work," he recalled.
Having acted for a decade with little to show for it, Hudson poured everything he had into the role, including endless workouts in a boxing gym. He won standing ovations and critical raves at Twin Cities theaters.
"It was really successful, probably the best thing I've ever done," he said.
Hudson drew audiences that filled seats but went largely unpaid by stingy community theaters, leaving him a young single father so financially strapped that he couldn't afford Christmas gifts for his boys, and faced eviction by his landlord.
He walked out of his hit play at one point, triggering canceled performances and a heated public discussion. The mayor got involved. In a civic meeting at the time, Hudson said "with all the theater in Minneapolis, there's no place for a black actor to make a living." The debate sparked the creation and funding of Penumbra Theatre as a forum for voices of color in the Twin Cities theater community.
Claude Purdy, a young black actor, director and filmmaker brought in from Los Angeles to direct the play, stayed on to become Penumbra's resident director. In turn, he encouraged promising new writer August Wilson to move here as well, supporting Wilson as he grew to national stature.
Hudson, who divides his time between homes in suburban Minneapolis and Los Angeles, wasn't embittered by the experience.
"I still consider Minneapolis my home even though I can't spend much time there," the perpetually busy performer said.
He met his second wife, Linda Kingsberg, in 1976 after a theater performance, made his film debut in "Leadbelly" shortly afterward, then moved ahead to myriad TV appearances.
He has more than 200 film and TV credits on his resume, including roles on "Oz," "Law & Order" and "Desperate Housewives." Currently he's a returning cast member on ABC's "Modern Family," playing Lily Tomlin's boyfriend in the Netflix series "Grace & Frankie" and will appear in Showtime's revival of "Twin Peaks." He's also filming the upcoming Epix network original series "Graves," a political satire with Nick Nolte as a disgraced former president trying to right his administration's wrongs.
"I'm working and shooting projects in places all over the country," he said. "Every place except Minneapolis."
One of his most high-profile Twin Cities gigs came in 2003, when Hudson appeared in Wilson's Pulitzer Prize finalist "King Hedley II" at Penumbra.
"For a guy out of Michigan who didn't know anybody, I do feel very, very blessed."
Hudson considers his two "Ghostbusters" films to be great opportunities that didn't pay off as expected. His role was considerably trimmed from the original script and he wasn't pictured on the first film's poster with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. He attained more visibility in the sequel five years later, but that movie marked the end of the potential series.
"Things have not happened the way I thought they'd happen after 'Ghostbusters,'" he said. "I'm glad I didn't lose faith but stayed in and managed to keep getting work. I've been very fortunate."
While he has previously called a new take on the classic comedy "a bad idea," he was so impressed by the script that director/co-writer Paul Feig offered that he joined the new cast last September "to support the film." He praised the new incarnation, saying "when they asked me to come and join them it was great. I'd have been very disappointed had I not been."
Hudson said he's proud of the way the audience has embraced the franchise. There are chapters of Ghostbusters fan clubs across the globe. Hudson frequently appears at their conventions to meet them in his costume from the film. Sometimes they come to him. While shopping for a car he encountered a salesman who showed Hudson that he had the actor's face tattooed on his leg because he loved that character so much.
"I so admire them," he said. "There's so much negative stuff going on in our society. If I see anything at some of the conventions, it's fans who are latching onto a movie and find a way to come together as a community.
"A lot of the Ghostbuster chapters do charity work. So I'm excited about that and I'm excited about how they've been able to take this and turn it into something positive. We need as much of that as we can get. Because there are so many things that are so divisive now. So much stuff that just tears us apart. But there are Asian Ghostbuster chapters and black and white and they're all having fun together."
