(Los Angeles) Ron Cephas Jones, a veteran stage actor who won two Emmys for his role as a father who finds redemption on the NBC television series This Is Us, has died at the age of 66, announced a representative, Saturday.
Mr. Jones’ manager, Dan Spilo, said in an emailed statement that the actor died “due to a long-standing lung problem.”
“Throughout his career, his warmth, beauty, generosity, kindness and heart were felt by all who were fortunate enough to know him,” Mr. Spilo said.
Mr. Jones underwent a double lung transplant in 2020, due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and spent nearly two months in a hospital in Los Angeles.
In This Is Us, the actor played William “Shakespeare” Hill, a father whose life is renewed through his relationship with the family of his son, Randall Pearson, played by Sterling K. Brown.
“One of the most wonderful people the world has ever seen is no longer with us,” Mr. Brown wrote in an Instagram social media post after Mr. Jones died. “The world is a little less bright. My brother, you are loved. And we will miss you,” he added.
Mr. Jones played a more central role in the show’s early seasons, but appeared in one form or another in all six seasons of the show, which featured time-hopping narratives, providing recurring opportunities for actors, even after the death of their characters.
Mr. Jones won Emmys for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2018 and 2020. He was nominated for two more Emmys.
“Ron was the best of the best, on screen, on stage, and in real life,” This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman told X. My God, what an actor. I don’t think I ever changed a single take of him in a shot because everything he did was perfect. »
Mr. Jones spent most of his career in theater before and after This Is Us, returning to Broadway even after his transplant forced him to relearn how to breathe and walk.
“My whole life has been the stage,” Mr. Jones said in an interview with The New York Times, in late 2021, in which he revealed that he had suffered from respiratory issues from around the time he started. his role on This Is Us.
“The idea of not playing any more seemed worse than death,” Mr. Jones said.
He was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award in 2022, for his role on Broadway as a truck stop cook in playwright Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s.
A native of Paterson, New Jersey, Mr. Jones was a graduate of Ramapo College, where he intended to study jazz, but switched to acting during his sophomore year. He spent the late 1970s and early 1980s traveling the country, working as a bus driver in Southern California for several years.
In the mid-1980s he moved to New York City, where his career got off to a good start when he began frequenting and collaborating at the Nuyorican Poets Café, a vital creative center for poetry, hip-hop and music. scenic arts.
A prominent role came to him in 1994, when he landed the lead role in playwright Cheryl West’s drama Holiday Heart.
He would spend the next decades constantly in theater, often in Off-Broadway plays in New York, including a title role as Shakespeare’s Richard III, at the Public Theater, and in roles with the Steppenwolf Theater Company, in Chicago. .
Mr. Jones has also guest-starred on television on Mr. Robot, Luke Cage and Lisey’s Story.
Her film appearances include 2006’s Half Nelson with Ryan Gosling and 2019’s Dolemite Is My Name with Eddie Murphy.
He is survived by his daughter, Jasmine Cephas Jones.
