Early life and education
Hudson was born Earnest Lee Hudson on December 17, 1945, in the small industrial city of Benton Harbor in southwestern Michigan. He never knew his father, and his mother, Maggie Donald, died of tuberculosis when he was about two months old, so he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Arrana Donald.1 As a child in Benton Harbor he wrote short stories, poems, and songs, imagining his words one day brought to life on a stage.
Hudson joined the U.S. Marine Corps shortly after high school but was discharged on medical grounds after only a few months.1 The frequently retold version of the story holds that a drill instructor made him eat shellfish, to which he was allergic; he suffered an asthma attack and was released soon after.
After his discharge he settled in Detroit, where he became the resident playwright at Concept East, one of the oldest Black theater companies in the United States, and founded the Actors' Ensemble Theatre, in which he and other young Black writers staged and performed their own work. He enrolled at Wayne State University to develop his writing and acting and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1973. He then won a place at the Master of Fine Arts program at the prestigious Yale School of Drama, but left after about a year when he was cast in his first feature film.12
Career
Hudson made his feature debut as Archie in Gordon Parks's Leadbelly (1976), the part that drew him away from Yale.1 Steady film and television work followed through the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Penitentiary II (1982) and guest spots on series such as The A-Team and The Dukes of Hazzard.
His role as Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters (1984) made him internationally recognizable, and he built a long and prolific career as a dependable character actor. Notable film credits include The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), Sergeant Albrecht in The Crow (1994), Airheads (1994), The Basketball Diaries (1995), Captain Monroe Kelly in Congo (1995), and FBI Assistant Director Harry McDonald in Miss Congeniality (2000) and its 2005 sequel.1
On television he is widely recognized as Warden Leo Glynn across the full run of HBO's prison drama Oz (1997 to 2003); his son Ernie Hudson Jr. also appeared in the series.1 Later television work includes Dr. Ken Fields on The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008 to 2013), the voice of Agent William Fowler on the animated Transformers: Prime (2010 to 2013), a recurring judge on Franklin & Bash, the recurring romantic lead Jacob on Grace and Frankie (2015 to 2020), and L.C. Duncan on The Family Business. He has also appeared in Modern Family and Mob City.
From 2022 to 2024 Hudson co-starred as Herbert "Magic" Williams in NBC's revival of Quantum Leap, a role that earned him a Saturn Award nomination and a win for Best Supporting Actor in a drama series at the 2024 Astra TV Awards.3 His recent screen work includes the films Prisoner's Daughter (2022), Champions (2023), and The Retirement Plan (2023); the series Boston Blue (2025); and voicing Combat Carl in the upcoming Toy Story 5 (2026), taking over the role following the death of Carl Weathers.4 On June 8, 2024, a stretch of South Fair Avenue near his childhood home in Benton Harbor was renamed "Ernie Hudson Way" in his honor.5
Ghostbusters
Winston Zeddemore is Hudson's career-defining role. He has played the character in every live-action film in the series: Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024).6789 He also voiced Winston in Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) and the 2022 multiplayer title Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed.10
In the 2016 reboot, Hudson appears in a separate, unrelated cameo as Mr. Tolan, the uncle of new Ghostbuster Patty Tolan.11
Hudson auditioned to voice Winston for the animated series The Real Ghostbusters but did not get the part. Casting director Marsha Goodman was directed by the producers to cast Arsenio Hall instead, whom they considered funnier and sillier; Hall voiced Winston for the first run of the show.
Hudson also contributed written content to IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters: Total Containment collected edition, including the introduction and an essay titled "Bustin' (Still) Makes Me Feel Good."12
Ghostbusters (1984)
Hudson first heard about Ghostbusters when he happened to bump into director Ivan Reitman in an elevator at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Reitman told him there was no role for him at the time, but Hudson later auditioned for Winston and was cast.
During production, Hudson was known as the crew's "barbecue master," hosting cookouts at his home every other weekend and opening them to cast and crew.
At the Westwood premiere, Hudson and Annie Potts were not recognized as part of the cast and were removed from the red carpet by security. On premiere day Hudson also greeted moviegoers outside Westwood's AVCO theater while dressed in full Winston costume.
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Hudson happened not to have a mustache during filming of Ghostbusters II. There was no deliberate decision to have him shave it; he simply did not have one at the time. He had also considered shaving his head before filming began.
For the scene where Egon, Ray, and Winston emerge from the River of Slime outside the Manhattan Museum of Art, filming took place in New York at roughly 2 a.m. in about 10-degree weather. The actors were doused with buckets of slime over many hours with no heaters on set, and had to squeeze up through a manhole around tight phone conduit. Hudson at one point asked Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis what they had been thinking when they wrote that scene.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
On the day Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Hudson filmed together, the first shot of the morning was the sequence in which Gozer throws them into the side of Ecto-1.
Murray teased Hudson for having a pad hidden under his spot on the dirt ground during the insult scene; Hudson quipped that it was for the stunt man. Olivia Wilde, still in her Gozer costume and Pazuzu makeup, sat with the typically introverted Hudson at lunch during production. Hudson accidentally struck Murray's head with his Particle Thrower prop after director Jason Reitman called cut on a scene; it left a mark, but Murray returned to set a few minutes later.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009)
For the realistic version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, the development team used Hudson's appearance in the film Airheads as reference for his character model.
Personal life
Hudson married his first wife, Jeannie Moore, in 1963; they had two sons, Ernie Hudson Jr. (also an actor) and Rahaman Hudson, and divorced in 1976. In 1985 he married Linda Kingsberg, a former flight attendant, with whom he has two more sons, Andrew and Ross. As of 2026 he and Kingsberg remain married. Hudson is a practicing Christian.1
IDW comics tributes
The IDW Comics series includes several in-universe nods to Hudson. In Ghostbusters Annual 2015, Winston's blue coffee mug displays the text "Reggie Sandman Martin," the name of the boxer Hudson portrayed in the Full House episode "Knock Yourself Out" (Season 1, Episode 7, October 30, 1987).13
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #3, the Ghostbusturtles reference a co-worker out sick whose first name is Ernie Hudson.14 On Cover B of Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1, Winston's employee file lists his birthday as June 17, 1945, derived from Hudson's actual birthday of December 17, 1945.15 In Ghostbusters Year One Issue #4, Winston's outfit is visually based on one worn by Hudson's character Sergeant Tremaine "Night Train" Lane in the 1986 NBC series The Last Precinct.16
Quotes
"I've been in this business for 40 years and some of my close friends have never been seen in anything. So to have the opportunity to be in a movie, especially one as culturally present as Ghostbusters, is really a treat I treasure every day. So when people come up to me and say 'That's a big Twinkie' or 'I've seen sh*t that will turn you WHITE', I don't really mind at all."
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
