Emerson College alumnus Bill Bordy, a Hollywood actor, writer, and director, has donated $2.5 million to the school’s Los Angeles internship program, the college announced Tuesday.
It is the largest single donation in the school’s history, according to college president Lee Pelton, and the first to support the West Coast program.
The school plans to name the media and conference center in its new Sunset Boulevard building after Bordy, who graduated from Emerson in 1958.
The college is in the midst of a $20 million fund-raising campaign for the Los Angeles program, where students intern in the media, marketing, and the entertainment industries.
Emerson’s Los Angeles site is next door to the location where Bordy published Drama-Logue, a weekly theatrical trade print publication for actors, entertainers, and behind-the-scenes talent that he started in 1972 and sold to Billboard Productions in 1998.
Bordy has given to Emerson in the past. In 1987 he established the Bill Bordy Scholarship and in 2002 the college named a theater and auditorium after him in honor of another donation.
“It’s deeply satisfying for Bill, I know it is, and it’s deeply satisfying for the college and all of the many students that this gift will support,” Pelton said in an interview Tuesday.
More than 4,500 Emerson students have participated in the Los Angeles program since its launch in 1986, according to the school.
Board of trustees co-vice chairman Vin Di Bona said Bordy’s donation will help support not only students but the entertainment industry as a whole. The new $85 million facility offers programs for alumni and the general public, the school said.
Bordy is originally from Homestead, Pa., and attended the Ringling College of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh before receiving a bachelor of arts degree from Emerson. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, according to Emerson. He now lives in Sarasota, Fla.
In Hollywood, he wrote, produced, directed, and performed in movies, television, and stage productions, according to the college.
E-mail Laura Krantz at laura.krantz@globe.com