Ellwood Kieser

Biography

Born in Philadelphia on March 27, 1929, Ellwood Kieser graduated from La Salle High School and College in 1950, and entered the Paulists the following September. He made his first profession on September 8, 1951 and was ordained in May 3, 1956. After a brief summer assignment at New York City's Good Shepherd parish, he reported to Los Angeles where he spent the rest of his life. He joined the parish staff of St. Paul the Apostle there and the popularity of his inquiry classes led an early program director at a local TV station to put "Fr. Bud" on the air. The televised inquiry classes evolved into "Insight," a TV series featuring many of America's finest writers, actors and directors that produced new shows for 23 years. It ran on over 200 stations and won 6 Emmy Awards for excellence. In 1974 Fr. Bud created the Humanitas Prize to encourage the communication of human values through entertainment writing. Changing Federal Regulations brought down the curtain on "Insight" and moved Bud and Paulist Productions into commercial and full length movie production. He broke new ground by producing movies of the week, "After School Specials," and the feature films "Romero," the life of the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, and "Entertaining Angels," the story of Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day. While at the Paulist retreat at Lake George, New York, in July, 2000, Fr. Bud fell ill and flew home to Los Angeles to see his doctors. Diagnosed with intestinal cancer he died only six weeks later at the UCLA Medical Center. At the time of his death he was 71 years old and been a Paulist priest for 44 years.