Education and Background
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, to a Jewish family, David Barry Brudnoy was the only child of Doris and Harry Brudnoy. Harry was a dentist in the Minneapolis area, a profession he maintained for over 50 years. During his youth, David was known to be precocious, and in addition to reading a lot, he enjoyed collecting stamps. He was also interested in history, and thanks to the influence of his Aunt Kathie, with whom he was close for all of his life, he became interested in movies; he often attended them with her. Years later, David Brudnoy would become known for his work as a film critic, and he remarked in his autobiography that his aunt had undoubtedly contributed to his success by taking him to so many films.
Although he did not articulate it at the time, he was also aware of certain homosexual attractions. Years later, he would detail the confusion he felt, discussing his teenage and college years in his 1997 book, Life Is Not a Rehearsal. During his childhood, David and his family briefly lived in Macon, Georgia and San Antonio, Texas; his father had enlisted in the Army Reserves and the moves were so that he could be near army bases. David first attended college in 1958, receiving a BA from Yale in New Haven. He also received M.A.s from Harvard and Brandeis, and a Ph.D. from Brandeis, focusing on East Asian studies and history. He received an honorary doctorate from Emerson College in 1996.
As a professor, Brudnoy taught classes or was a guest lecturer at many major colleges and universities throughout Boston and New England, as well as in Texas: Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern University, Merrimack College, University of Rhode Island, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, as well as Texas Southern University. He was respected as an educator: student evaluations for his courses at B.U. indicate that they were very well received, and former students were among those who wrote eloquent tributes to him when he died. According to those students, he was such a devoted educator that even as he was dying, he made certain to finish grading their term papers.
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