Actor and Producer Tim Reid Is a Member of Alpha Phi Alpha

Did you know that veteran actor, comedian, and producer Tim Reid is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.? Reid was initiated into the fraternity’s Eta Lambda Chapter in 2010.

Timothy Lee Reid was born on December 19, 1944, in Norfolk, Virginia, and came of age in the segregated South. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Norfolk State College, an HBCU, in 1968, and briefly worked for the DuPont Corporation before finding his way into entertainment. Around the turn of the 1970s, he teamed with comedian Tom Dreesen to form “Tim and Tom,” the first interracial comedy duo in the United States.

Reid became a household name as the smooth late-night DJ Venus Flytrap on the hit sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, which ran from 1978 to 1982. When producers first offered him a stereotypical version of the character, Reid pushed back, helping reshape Venus into a Vietnam veteran with real depth, an early sign of the standard he would bring to his work. He went on to star as “Downtown” Brown on the detective series Simon & Simon, and from 1994 to 1999 he introduced himself to a new generation as Ray Campbell, the sneaker-store-owning father opposite Tia and Tamera Mowry on the beloved sitcom Sister, Sister.

His most groundbreaking achievement came in 1987, when he co-created, produced, and starred in Frank’s Place, a critically acclaimed “dramedy” about a professor who inherits a New Orleans restaurant. Praised for its honest, dignified portrayal of Black life, the show earned Reid an NAACP Image Award. He continued that mission behind the camera, directing the 1995 film Once Upon a Time… When We Were Colored and founding New Millennium Studios in Virginia, one of the first full-service film studios owned by an African American.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell Reid (1987)

Today, Reid remains a mentor to the next generation as the founder and president of the Legacy Media Institute, which supports young people pursuing careers in film and television. Alongside his wife, actress Daphne Maxwell Reid, he has spent decades working to expand and enrich the images of Black life on screen, an example of the “manly deeds, scholarship, and love for all mankind” at the heart of Alpha Phi Alpha.

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