PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia’s University of the Arts is celebrating a graduate who is among the Hollywood elite. 

Ric Kidney graduated from what was then Philadelphia College of Art in 1975 and knocked around various aspects of filmmaking in Philadelphia and New York before heading west. 

Now, Kidney says having been executive producer of this summer’s thriller Salt with Angelina Jolie (in file photo above), and producer of Legally Blonde, he’ll give a keynote speech focusing on flexibility:

“Students should be open to many different disciplines in the movie business, not just think that they’re going to be just a writer or they’re going to be a director and it doesn’t just apply to film-making.  It applies to any one of the arts.”

Kidney says he no longer dreams of directing, but has found his spot as the “detail person” making the cooperative art of the movies possible.

Reported by John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio