Emmy® Winner’s Life Came into Focus at St. John’s

That visit to the Queens campus set in motion a career that would take Mr. Milley from his hometown of Brooklyn, NY, to the bright lights of Hollywood, CA. Along the way came a 2021 Emmy® Award as producer of Red Table Talk, an informative talk show starring Jada Pinkett Smith, her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and daughter Willow. Jada Pinkett Smith, an actress, director, writer, and producer, is the wife of film star Will Smith; Willow is their 25-year-old daughter.  

The show, which aired on Facebook Watch from 2018 to 2023, featured the three generations of women discussing sensitive personal and social issues. Mr. Milley was the show’s senior producer from January 2020 to July 2022, part of a nearly two-decade career in TV production that began with internships secured at the College of Professional Studies, now The Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies.    

“My senior year, I did two television internships—Maury, starring Maury Povich, and The Rachael Ray Show,” Mr. Milley recalled. “I was living in Brooklyn, going to school in Queens, and commuting into Manhattan. Those internships made my career; I often think, what if I had not applied on the website? What if I did not get them?” 

Hired from a pool of 40 Rachael Ray interns for one of a few full-time production assistant positions, Mr. Milley worked on the popular daytime show for more than eight years, rising to senior associate producer, before leaving for a series of freelance ventures ahead of Red Table Talk.  

Among those ventures, he served as a producer for the Hallmark Channel show Home & Family; as a producer for the NBCUniversal special Will & Grace After Party; and as a story producer for the Amazon Prime fashion-based reality series Making the Cut, starring Heidi Klum. A four-time Emmy® nominee, he is currently producing the comedy-drama short film Grace, about the effort of a young woman with Down syndrome to attend her mother’s funeral.     

He is also the executive producer of four podcasts and has several scripted projects in development, both as writer and producer. 

Over two decades, Mr. Milley, who now lives in Los Angeles, CA, has learned to navigate the challenges of topsy-turvy Hollywood with good humor and a forward-looking personality. “There has been shifting sand beneath my feet,” he admitted. “But the more fun I have, the more opportunities seem to come my way.” 

In 2015, Mr. Milley and colleagues famously pitched Rachael Ray executives on an effort to mitigate food insecurity. Partnering with the nonprofits Feeding America and No Kid Hungry, the show—rooted in Ms. Ray’s cooking expertise—provided 11 million meals to families across the nation. The initiative caught the attention of the White House during President Barack Obama’s term; First Lady Michelle Obama sent inspirational messages as the team reached milestones in meal preparation.  

“Those nonprofits had never worked together before—but they did for our show,” Mr. Milley recalled. “Rachael was passionate about the issue of food scarcity, and this was in service of that mission.” 

“What I have learned over the course of my career and the lesson I would share is that sometimes the great idea is yours,” Mr. Milley continued. “Sometimes it is OK to speak up and say something.” 

The 11 million meals effort was rooted in Mr. Milley’s experience at St. John’s, where the University’s Vincentian mission opened his mind to the challenges of the less fortunate. One of his favorite volunteer causes these days is the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. 

 Mr. Milley said his St. John’s experience is defined by one word: hope. “Hope is timeless; it runs backward and forward,” he explained. “It is hope for the future. It is hope for a life change. That is what St. John’s represented for me on that admission tour—and it still does.”