Notable Alumni

John Adams , 1775

Life Accomplishments: Attended First Continental Congress; Signed Declaration of Independence; First US Vice President, 1789; Second US President, 1796

John Quincy Adams, 1788

Life Accomplishments: US Senator; Secretary of State under President James Monroe; Sixth US President, 1825-1829; US Representative

Phillips Brooks, 1855

Life Accomplishments: Clergyman; Bishop of Massachusetts in the Episcopal Church in the 1890s; lyricist of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

Pudding Involvement: Performed with the Pudding; It is rumored that he was cast for his height (he was around 6 feet, 3 inches)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1861

Life Accomplishments: Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; Served on the US Supreme Court for 30 years; Weld Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

Pudding Involvement: Performed in three Pudding productions, including 1860’s The Refreshing Comedietta “Raising the Wind”, in which he played a character named “Sam”; the playbill for Raising the Wind jokingly refers to the Pudding as the “Hastipoudini Academy of Music”

Henry Cabot Lodge, 1872

Life Accomplishments: Massachusetts Senator; US Senate majority leader; Best known for his battles with President Woodrow Wilson over the Treaty of Versailles (Lodge demanded Congressional control over US declarations of war); Successfully prevented the US entry to the League of Nations

Pudding Involvement: Performed and wrote Pudding shows

Edmund March Wheelwright, 1876

Life Accomplishments: Architect for the Boston’s Museum of Fine Art, among other projects; Board of Directors for the American Institute of Architects; Architect for the Harvard Lampoon Castle

Pudding Involvement: Performed with the Pudding

Francis Attwood, 1880, did not graduate

Life Accomplishments: Artist/cartoonist for Cosmopolitan and Life Magazine; Illustrated, along with John Tyler Wheelwright, a book called Lines Read at the Centennial Celebration of the Hasty Pudding Club of Harvard College: 1795-1895

Pudding Involvement: Artist for the Pudding, designed sets and props

Theodore Roosevelt, 1880

Life Accomplishments: 26th US President

Pudding Involvement: Secretary; referred to the then-dingy theater space as “the shed”.

Owen Wister, 1882

Life Accomplishments: Author. Wrote The Virginian, which invented the Western genre as we know it.

Pudding Accomplishments: Wrote 1882’s Dido and Aeneas, which brought the Pudding widespread acclaim and was the impetus to build 12 Holyoke St.

William Randolph Hearst, 1885, did not graduate

Life Accomplishments: Newspaper, publishing and business magnate; Publisher of The San Francisco Examiner and The New York Journal; US Representative

Pudding Involvement: Played a character named Pretzel; was expelled from Harvard after presenting his teachers with chamber pots instead of pudding pots, was expunged from all Harvard records

George Santayana, 1886

Life Accomplishments: Famous man-of-letters and historian. Has two awesome quotations attributed to him: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” and “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Pudding Involvement: Played a woman in 1885’s Robin Hood

JP Morgan, Jr., 1886

Life Accomplishments: Helped to rescue the America economy during the Banking Panic of 1907; Prominent financier and investment banker

Pudding Involvement: Business manager for 1889’s The Duenna; Ironically, given his later financial successes, nearly bankrupted the Pudding while he was the manager

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1904

Life Accomplishments: New York State Senator; Assistant Secretary of the Navy; New York Governor; 32nd US President

Pudding Involvement: Played a chorus girl in Catnippers; Treasurer

John S. Reed, 1910

Life Accomplishments: Journalist and prominent member of the American Communist Labor Party; Best known for his first hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World. Buried in the Kremlin Necropolis

Pudding Involvement: Wrote the lyrics for a Pudding production, even though he openly criticized Harvard’s “social aristocrats” through his involvement with the Socialist Club

Robert Benchley, 1912-1913

Life Accomplishments: Columnist for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair; Champion of Modern Humanist; Academy Award winner for his short film How to Sleep; appearances in many other films

Pudding Involvement: Cast member in The Crystal Gazer and Below Zero

Robert Sherwood, 1918

Life Accomplishments: Playwright, editor, screenwriter; Sat on the board of Vanity Fair with Robert Benchley; wrote many notable American plays, including The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946 recipient of the Academy Award for Best Screenplay

Pudding Involvement: Wrote Barnum Knows Best

Alistair Cooke, 1932

Life Accomplishments: American and British radio and television personality; host of Masterpiece Theatre on PBS for 22 seasons; Foreign correspondent for the London Times, US correspondent for the Manchester Guardian; Hosted Letter from America on BB for fifty five years

Pudding Involvement: Directed 1934 Hades, the Ladies; Called the Pudding “the snootiest Harvard club, very wealthy and pleasant”

Archibald Cox, 1934

Life Accomplishments: Law professor; Served as the US Solicitor General under President Kennedy; first special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal; Journal of Legal Studies’s “Most cited legal scholars of the 20th century”

Pudding Involvement: Assistant Manager for the show in 1933

John F. Kennedy, 1940

Life Accomplishments: US Representative, US Senator, 35th US President

Pudding Involvement: Performed with the Pudding

Alan Jay Lerner, 1940

Life Accomplishments: Won three Tony Awards and three Oscars for his work as a librettist, which included writing the books for movies Gigi, My Fair Lady, and An American in Paris; With fellow Harvard grad (and former Krok) Leonard Bernstein, wrote Lonely Men of Harvard

Pudding Involvement: Wrote and participated in the 1938 and 1939 shows; classmate of JFK’s; During his time at Harvard, Lerner lost his sight in his left eye due to an accident in the boxing ring

Jack Lemmon, 1947

Life Accomplishments: Actor in more than 60 films, including Some Like It Hot and The Odd Couple; received two Academy Awards and “Best Actor” at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival

Pudding Involvement: First performed in drag in 1945′s Proof of the Pudding; President of the Pudding in 1947

George Plimpton, 1948-1950

Life Accomplishments: Sports writer for Sports Illustrated; known for founding literary magazine The Paris Review; Author of Paper Lion, a book about his time as the backup quarterback for the Detroit Lions, among other books; has made cameo appearances in many shows and films

Pudding Involvement: Performed with the Pudding

Fred Gwynne, 1951

Life Accomplishments: Acted in sitcoms like Car 54, Where Are You?, and The Munsters; Known for his role as Judge Chamberlain Haller in My Cousin Vinny 

Pudding Involvement: Played Pablo in HPT 101: Tomorrow is Manaña and the Sheriff in HPT 102: Heart of Gold

Ted Kennedy, 1956

Life Accomplishments: United States Senator from MA; Lion of the Senate

Erich Segal, 1958

Life Accomplishments: Wrote both novel and screenplay version of Love Story

Pudding Involvement: Wrote HPT 110: The Big Fizz

William Weld, 1966

Life Accomplishments: Federal prosecutor in the US Justice Department; 68th Governor of Massachusetts

Pudding Involvement: Performed in the cast of Pudding shows

Mark O’Donnell, 1976

Life Accomplishments: Along with Thomas Meehan, received the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical for Hairspray; Again with Meehan, wrote the 2007 film adaptation for Hairspray

Pudding Involvement: Writer and librettist for three Pudding productions

Grover Norquist, 1978

Life Accomplishments: Founder and President of Americans for Tax Reform

Pudding Involvement: Production Assistant for HPT 128: Tots in Tinsletown

Paris Barclay, 1979

Life Accomplishments: Directed music videos for stars like Janet Jackson, LL Cool Jay, and Bob Dylan; Directed over 120 episodes for major television shows like Glee, The West Wing, and Lost; Earned two Emmy Awards for NYPD Blue; Currently the executive producer of FX’s highest rated series ever, Sons of Anarchy; four-term First Vice President of the Directors Guild of America

Pudding Involvement: Wrote the music for two Pudding shows

Andy Borowitz, 1980

Life Accomplishments: Creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; Co-produced Pleasantville; Creator of The Borowitz Report, a satire news website; New York Times bestselling author; first recipient of the National Press Club award for humor; Contributing writer for The New Yorker

Pudding Involvement: Wrote HPT 130: A Thousand Clones

Paul Felix,1987

Life Accomplishments: Walt Disney animator and visual development designer for Mulan, Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Brother Bear, among others; Production designer for Lilo and Stitch; Art director for Bolt

Pudding Involvement: Artist for the HPT 136

Larry O’Keefe, 1991

Life Accomplishments: Most famous as the composer and lyricist for Bat Boy: The Musical, Sarah, Plain and Tall, and Legally Blonde: The Musical

Pudding Involvement: Performed in two shows; Composed two shows, including Suede Expectations (book by Mo Rocca); Penned one libretto, Romancing the Throne

Mo Rocca, 1991

Life Accomplishments: Was a regular contributor to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and NBC’s The Tonight Show and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann; Specializes in political satire; Currently featured on CBS News Sunday Morning; Regular panelist on the National Public Radio game show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me

Pudding Involvement: President of HPT; Performed in all four shows during his time at Harvard; Co-authored Suede Expectations

Nell Benjamin, 1993

Life Accomplishments: Co-wrote Cam Jansen and Sarah, Plain and Tall

Pudding Involvement: Co-wrote Romancing the Throne with the O’Keefe brothers

David Javerbaum, 1993

Life Accomplishments: Former Executive Producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; Recipient of 11 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, two Peabody Awards, and Television Critics Association Awards for Best Comedy and Best News Show; co-author/producer for America (The Book) and Earth (The Book). Last Testament of God.

Pudding Involvement: Lyricist and co-book writer for HPT 144: Up Your Ante and HPT 146: A Forum Affair 

Mark O’Keefe, 1993

Life Accomplishments: Screenwriter for Bruce Almighty, Evan Almighty and Click

Pudding Involvement: Pudding bookwriter for Romancing the Throne, along with his brother Larry

*Brother of Larry O’Keefe, Pudding composer. Their father invented the holiday Festivus, which gained exposure on an episode of Seinfeld (written by their brother Danny) and is now celebrated around the world

Rashida Jones, 1997

Life Accomplishments: Actress in Boston Public, The Office, I Love You, Man, The Social Network, and Parks and Recreation, among other shows and movies; NAACP Image Award Nominee; Contributed to the Grammy Award winning audio version of Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones

Pudding Involvement: Co-composed the score for HPT 149, member of the business staff

 

BJ Novak, 2001

Life Accomplishments: Actor and writer for The Office. Also, appeard in Punk’d and Inglorious Basterds.

Pudding Involvement: Was in HPC

 

Megan Amram, 2010

Life Accomplishments: Internet phenom; writer for Disney Channel’s A.N.T. Farm, the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. Follow her @meganamram

Pudding Involvement: Co-writer of HPT 161: Acropolis Now and HPT 162: Commie Dearest; Along with Alexandra Petri (‘10), Amram was part of the Pudding’s first all-female writing team;