Years active 1980–present Name Donald Reed | Role Television actor Spouse Helen Reed (m. 1990) | |
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Occupation comedian, television actor and writer Movies Hollywood Shuffle, Once Upon a Forest People also search for Robert Townsend, David Michener, Charles Grosvenor | ||
Don Reed (born November 23, 1959) is an American actor, writer, producer, director and comedian.
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Early life
Reed grew up in Oakland, California and attended Fremont High School. Additionally he attended Chabot Junior College in Hayward, California before being recruited to UCLA for intercollegiate Speech & Debate competition where he became a National Champion in competitive events: Speech to Entertain, Poetry and Dramatic readings.
Television career: 1987–present
In the fall of 1988, Don Reed was performing stand-up comedy at NACA and impressed a major Hollywood player so much he signed Reed for two episodes of a television spin-off of The Cosby Show, titled A Different World, on which he played "Chip St. Charles", whom Denise Huxtable had a crush on. This was Reed's television debut; he left the show in 1989.
After A Different World, Reed was cast as "Fingers" in a film called Dance to Win, which was released on December 1, 1989, in the United States. Reed also appeared on the HBO television program Dream On in 1990, then he appeared on Robert Townsend's ventures: an HBO television special Robert Townsend and His Partners in Crime (1991) and The Meteor Man (1993) as a drug worker.
Reed was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards: one for Dream On, The Cosby Show and Robert Townsend and His Partners in Crime in 1989.
Reed was the promotion executive at NBC, for two years, and then he did voice-work for cartoons such as Disney's Gargoyles, Spider-Man and The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest.
Reed's movie credits include: Fear of a Black Hat and Once Upon a Forest. Reed also joined the cast of NBC's The Rerun ShowHis showcase of impressions included Mike Tyson, Sherman Hemsley, Todd Bridges, Chris Rock, among others.
In 2008, he debuted a solo autobiographical show titled East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player and has presented a total of 5 solo shows altogether. In fall 2009, he became the warm-up comic for The Jay Leno Show. He is the first African American warm-up comedian for a major late night show – The Tonight Show with Jay Leno – and has performed stand-up to warm up the studio audience for over 1,000 episodes.
In 2016 he won an award from Snap Judgment for NPR/WNYC Performance of the Year. Later that year Theater Bay Area gave his show East 14th the 2016 TBA award for Outstanding Solo Show. In the same year, Reed co-starred in a made-for-television film, Bartlett, one of the NBC Streaming/Broadway's Hamilton series.