Schools

The Hangover, Sherlock Holmes and Hinsdale South Hall-of-Famers

The 2012 Hinsdale South Hall of Fame inductees are both tied to show business: Grant Stuart works on promos for major movies, and Matthew Walsh is a Hollywood funnyman in The Hangover, Old School and more.

Editor's note: The following information was provided by Hinsdale South in a news release.

From Hornets to Hollywood, this year's Hinsdale South High School Hall of Fame inductees are all about show business. 

The 2012-13 inductees are Grant Stuart ('86) and Matt Walsh ('82), and they'll be honored at the induction ceremony Thursday, Nov. 15.

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Matt Walsh 

He graduated from Hinsdale South High School in 1982. After graduating from Northern Illinois University with a degree in psychology, Walsh studied improv acting at the Annoyance Theater, Second City, Improv Olympic and Players Workshop.

Walsh began performing stand-up comedy in 1991 as a co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade, which ran for three seasons on Comedy Central. Following this success, Walsh has co-founded two successful Upright Citizens Brigade comedy theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Throughout this time, Walsh also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Dog Bites Man on Comedy Central and Outsourced on NBC.

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Recently, Walsh has appeared in such films as The Hangover, Old School and Ted. In 2010, Walsh created, wrote, directed, produced and starred in the improvised comedy series Players for Spike TV. In early 2012, Walsh directed his first feature film, High Road, an indie-comedy he co-wrote.

Walsh also hosts a weekly comedy podcast, Bear Down, where he gathers with fellow Chicagoans in Los Angeles to discuss the Chicago Bears. Currently, Walsh co-stars as Mike McClintock in the HBO seriesVeep. He Walsh resides near Studio City, CA, with his wife, Morgan, and their three children, Jude, Emmet and Celia.

Grant Stuart

He graduated from Hinsdale South in 1986. After two years studying acting at DePaul University’s Goodman School of Drama, Stuart graduated from Loyola University with a BA in Communications (TV/Film) and Theater, where he was awarded Loyola's Best Actor for his role as troubled teen Alan Strang in Equus.

After workingas an assistant for the Emmy Award-winning writing team at ABC's One Life to Live, from 1996 to 2000 he served as a coordinator, assistant producer and producer at ABC Primetime Marketing, where he produced on-air co-branded commercials that promoted events such as the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl on ABC, and the Stephen King mini-series The Shining.

Stuart also created a video presentation for Congress’ Office of National Drug Control Policy, highlighting ABC’s anti-drug programming commitment, which coincided with an ABC On-Air promotional campaignc alled "March Against Drugs," featuring ABC News talent Diane Sawyer. In this role, he also won several awards,including the PROMAX World Class Award for ABC.com On-Air promos, a PROMAX Gold Award for Electronic Signagewith the ABC Times Square Jumbotron, as well as the PROMAX Silver Award for “Spin City/New York City Metro Card” local promotion.

Since 2000 he has served as the vice president of co-branded content at VH1, specializing in on-air commercials that engage the audience and break through the clutter by seamlessly blending the channel's music and pop culture voice with advertisers' messages and objectives.

In addition to on-air integrated marketing content, Stuart directs production of select VH1 image and episodic promos, Upfront presentations, VH1 “Save the Music” on-air public service announcements, and yearly big event promos like the "Do Something Awards" and "VH1Divas." He also works closely with Hollywood movie studios on MTV Networks productions of high-profile on-air promos for titles such as Sherlock Holmes, Sex and the City 2 and the upcoming Les Miserables. He urrently resides in Brooklyn, NY.


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