[7] In the 1940s, Boyd moved to Hollywood and rented a room in a $15.00 a week boarding house on Franklin Avenue.

[8] He owned few possessions and only one shirt,[8] but was eventually given a position at a large agency and became a Hollywood junior producer.

[9] He began moving up in the Hollywood world, eventually founding PRB, a production company, with Mary Pickford,[9] becoming her business partner.

[9] In 1951, Boyd began studying to become a priest at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.

[10] In 1955, he continued his studies abroad in England and Switzerland and returned to Los Angeles for ordination as a priest.

[10] During 1956 and 1957, Boyd studied further at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and wrote his first book, Crisis in Communication.

Boyd recalled in an interview with The Lavender effect that the San Francisco Chronicle once called him "Marlon Brando in a collar," due to his Hollywood connections and attractive appearance.

Boyd believes that the conference might have accomplished much good if the speakers had included a white supremacist and a Negro race leader, preferably a top man in the American Black Muslim movement."

He quotes Boyd: A debate between them (meaning this white racist and a Black Muslim) would undoubtedly be bitter, but it would accomplish one thing: it would get some of the real issues out into the open.

[12] In 1970, Boyd was among 17 antiwar protesters, which also included Daniel Berrigan, who were arrested for attempting to celebrate a "mass for peace" at The Pentagon.