Daphne Maxwell Reid
Daphne Maxwell Reid is known as Aunt Viv on NBC's hit comedy, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. She is also known for her role of mortician/embalmer Hannah Griffin on the CBS comedy series Frank's Place in which she co-starred with her husband, Tim Reid. She teamed up with Tim again when she starred as Mickie Dennis on Snoops for CBS. In 1998 and 1999, she has played the bawdy hooker Eartha on Showtime’s Linc’s, created and produced by her husband and shot at New Millennium Studios in Virginia. In 2003 and 2004, she had the pleasure of working on UPN’s hit comedy Eve as boyfriend JT’s mother, Frances Hunter.
While pursuing a major in Interior Design and Architecture at Northwestern University, an English teacher from her high school days submitted a photograph to a magazine editor/friend who was preparing an article on college women. The result was a trip to New York and Maxwell Reid's first full-page photograph in Seventeen magazine. Quickly signed by the Eileen Ford Agency, she appeared in many magazines, including being the first Black woman to grace the cover of Glamour magazine.
Daphne Maxwell Reid loves to design clothes and she makes most of her own wardrobe. In 1992, Maxwell Reid took her sewing talent into a co-venture with the McCall Pattern Company and created, produced and starred in a four video and four-pattern kit called Suddenly You're Sewing. Reid also designs a bi-annual line of patterns for the McCall Pattern Company called the Daphne Maxwell Reid Collection.
With her husband, actor/writer/producer Tim Reid, Daphne co-founded and is a principal partner in New Millennium Studios, the first full-service film studio in Virginia. The state-of-the-art facility was completed and opened on July 12, 1997. For the past eleven years, Daphne has been acting Chief Operating Officer and has handled the business affairs and finances of New Millennium Studios and its various subsidiary companies including their new home video distribution company, Obsidian Home Entertainment.
Presently serving on the following boards, her involvement in the community at large, rounds out a full schedule; Petersburg Library Foundation, Virginia Commonwealth University Foundation Board, VA Capitol Foundation Board, Federal Commissioner for Jamestown 2007 Commemoration.
