Alan Hunter (VJ)

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Alan Hunter
Born (1957-02-14) February 14, 1957 (age 67)
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Alma materMillsaps College
Occupation(s)Television and radio personality, video jockey, actor
Websitehttp://1stVj.com

Alan Caldwell Hunter (born February 14, 1957) is one of the original five video jockeys (

The 80s on 8 channel and on the Classic Rewind
channel.

He co-owns the production company Hunter Films with his brother Hugh. He, Hugh and two other brothers also founded WorkPlay, a multipurpose office, studio and entertainment facility in

Encore
series Big 80s Weekend.

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1957, Hunter graduated from Mountain Brook High School in 1975 and earned his BA in psychology in 1979 from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. During his senior year he got his first television acting job in the ABC Movie of the Week Love's Savage Fury, starring Raymond Burr, Jennifer O'Neill and Michael Paré. After a stint as a professional actor at the Birmingham Children's Theatre, he moved to New York City to attend the Circle in the Square drama school. Afterwards, he held a series of "struggling actor" gigs: bartender, waiter, phone answering service attendant and a handful of Off-off-Broadway roles, finally earning a role in the music video for David Bowie's "Fashion" for which he was paid $50 a day and got to meet Bowie. He also had a bit part (on cutting room floor) in the film musical Annie.

MTV

In the early summer of 1981, he bumped into

Bob Pittman at a picnic in Central Park
. A month later, Hunter was tapped to join the fledgling MTV, only three weeks prior to its debut.

MTV went on the air August 1, 1981, at midnight in selected markets across America. Hunter was, by technical snafu, the first

VJ to appear on screen, with the words "Hi, I'm Alan Hunter. I'll be with you right after Mark. We'll be covering the latest in music news, coast to coast, here on MTV Music Television." And then the other original VJs – Martha Quinn, J. J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood and Mark Goodman
– followed.

During his first month with MTV, he kept his regular night job tending bar at New York's

VJ
. Over the next several years Hunter's typical work week included attending concerts and parties until the wee hours and then coming back to the studio at 8:00 am for a full day of taping interviews, promos and features.

Hunter was also heavily involved in the

Wrestlemania
in March 1985.

As MTV became a dominant outlet for music-related content in the early 1980s, Hunter's celebrity interviews included the first MTV interviews with

Michael McDonald, Rick Springfield, Peter Wolf, Toto, Level 42, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Chevy Chase and Pee-wee Herman
among others.

In his latter MTV years, Hunter became known for his remotes and road trips in such iconic and pioneering MTV programming like MTV Spring Break, MTV's Amuck in America and MTV's Hedonism Weekend with Bon Jovi in Jamaica.

Life after MTV

In August 1987, after six years with the channel, Hunter departed MTV as a full-time host and relocated from New York to

Leningrad
.

In 1989, he appeared in the film White Hot.

For the years he was in Los Angeles, Hunter starred in numerous

Time-Life
.

In the mid-1990s he moved back to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, to start a film company called Hunter Films, and, with his brothers, to create the multi-use entertainment facility, WorkPlay, named one of America's 40 Best Venues by Paste magazine.

In 2003, Hunter Films produced the

Lifted, which they co-produced and in which Hunter co-stars with Dash Mihok, Nicki Aycox, Ruben Studdard, Trace Adkins and in which Uriah Shelton
debuted.

Amid his entrepreneurial endeavors, in 2005 and 2006 Hunter continued his work as a TV host working with

Atria Books.[1]

Hunter co-founded Birmingham's Sidewalk Film Festival, named by Time magazine as one of the top ten "Film Festivals for the Rest of Us"[2] and serves as its board president. He launched the civic activist group Catalyst4Birmingham and has been an integral part of promoting the film business in the state of Alabama lobbying for legislation to create film incentives as well as the creation of the Birmingham-Jefferson Film Office.

As of 2022, Hunter lives in Webster Groves, Missouri, with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two children. Elizabeth Hunter is an assistant professor of drama in the department of performing arts at Washington University in St. Louis.[3][4]

References

  1. ISBN 9781451678123
    .
  2. ^ Mclaughlin, Lisa (May 30, 2006). "Culture: Film Festivals for the Rest of Us". Time.
  3. ^ Corrigan, Don (August 22, 2022). "His Media Career Rocks: MTV Video Jockey Alan Hunter Now In Orbit With Satellite Radio Gig". Webster-Kirkwood Times. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  4. ^ "Elizabeth Hunter". Washington University in St. Louis. 2 July 2021. Retrieved August 22, 2022.

External links

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