"The Walking Dead" Producer Walking Into UGA

By Cecil Bentley

The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication will present “A Conversation with Gale Anne Hurd,” executive producer of the AMC show “The Walking Dead,” Sept. 24, at 2 p.m. in Room 271 of the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries.

Hurd will be interviewed by Nate Kohn, professor in the Grady College’s telecommunications department and associate director of the Peabody Awards. The event, co-sponsored by DiGamma Kappa, UGA’s student broadcasting society, is free and open to the public. Hurd received DGK’s annual Distinguished Service to Broadcasting Award in March.

“The Walking Dead” is the nation’s most-watched scripted television drama, consistently ranking No. 1 among adults 18-to-49 for broadcast and cable series. The show has averaged more than 12 million viewers during its first three seasons and has been honored by the American Film Institute in both 2010 and 2012.

Hurd is an industry leader in her development of a multiplatform, trans-media approach to producing her award-winning series. She also serves as an officer of the Producers Guild and a Governor on the Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1998, she won the Women in Film Crystal Award, and she earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.

Hurd produced and co-wrote “The Terminator” in 1984 and followed that with “Aliens” in 1986, which earned two Academy Awards. She has produced several box-office hits and award-winning films, including “The Abyss,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” “The Ghost and the Darkness,” “Armageddon” and “Æon Flux.”