‘Renaissance man’ has deep roots in Iowa

Column originally published July 23, 2006

Move over, Glenn (Miller), Duke (Wayne) and Meredith (Willson). We need enough room on our list of Iowans who have made a national impact for a successful actor, a youth worker, a best-selling author, a scholar and a handsome heartthrob.

Fortunately, we don't need a lot of space, because one man fits all those descriptions.

Hill Harper was born Frank Harper in Iowa City in 1966 to Dr. Harry Harper Jr., a psychologist, and Marilyn Hill Harper, an anesthesiologist. He lived in Keokuk and Fort Madison until ninth grade, when he moved to Sacramento, Calif.

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"I came back every summer and Christmas to see my grandparents," he said in a telephone interview. "My aunt still lives in Fort Madison."

The achievements of the Harper family in medical, civil rights and University of Iowa alumni circles deserve a column of their own, but I was fascinated by his story before I knew about the Iowa connection.

Friends of mine told of providing a home-away-from-home for a handsome young Californian while he was studying economics, sociology, theater and urban planning at Brown University. After receiving his B.A. from Brown (magna cum laude, valedictorian) he picked up a Master's in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, then a J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Law School. At the same time, he was a frequently featured dancer on "Club MTV."

Degrees in hand, he went into acting. He's succeeded there, too, with dozens of stage, film and television performances. He plays Dr. Sheldon Hawkes on "CSI: New York." In 2004, People magazine named him one of the "sexiest men alive."

In his spare time, Harper volunteers for Big Brothers Big Sisters and talks to young people. That experience and his admiration for Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" inspired him to write "Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny." It's a memoir and life guide presented as e-mail correspondence between Harper and a fictional African-American boy.

It's a best-seller on the self-help lists. (A reference in it to his grandparents is what alerted me to his Iowa roots.)

What next?

The acting career seems to be gathering steam. He hopes to write at least one more self-help book for young people. He has some business interests. He has created a non-profit foundation to provide financial, educational and inspirational help to underserved young men.

You can keep track of his various activities at www.letterstoayoungbrother.com You might even catch a glimpse of him sometime in Iowa.

"I'd like to see the old house again," he said.

One thing about his career(s) is a bit ironic. Although he has all those degrees, portrays a physician on TV and comes from a family of medical practitioners, he isn't an M.D.

Yet.