Daphne Maxwell Reid

2006 Honoree

She’s not just another pretty face. She makes it her business to put the faces of African Americans on the small and big screens in the entertainment world. For years, Daphne Maxwell Reid, best known as Aunt Viv on the hit comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel Air has constantly seen her name in lights. Currently, she plays a recurring character, Mrs. Hunter, on UPN’s Eve.

In 1997, after years in front of the camera, she and her husband, actor Tim Reid, established New Millennium Studios in Petersburg, Va. The first full-service film studio in Virginia, New Millennium is a means for dreams to come true for filmmakers. In addition to serving as chief operating officer and business affairs principal of the studio, Maxwell Reid also has worked as executive producer on various projects at the facility.

New Millennium Studios has produced feature films (including Asunder and For Real, both for which Maxwell Reid served as executive producer), television series (including Linc’s and American Legacy Television) and commercials. Maxwell Reid also has starred in television series such as CBS’s Frank’s Place and Snoops and the acclaimed feature film Once Upon a Time … When We Were Colored.

Born in Manhattan, Maxwell Reid entered the spotlight by accident. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, she majored in interior design and architecture at Northwestern University in Illinois. While she was in college, one of Maxwell Reid’s former high school teachers sent her photograph to a magazine editor. As a result, she was featured in Seventeen magazine, was signed by a modeling agency and became the first black woman to appear on the cover of Glamour magazine.

Also a fashion designer and expert seamstress, Maxwell Reid invests in lives through the Tim Reid Scholarship Foundation. Created by her and her husband, the foundation raises scholarship funds for students attending historically black colleges and universities in Virginia.

Maxwell Reid offers the following advice to America’s youth: "Never let your environment define you. Dream beyond your environment by challenging yourself to make a change and go for it!"