The actor Ron Cephas Jones known for playing the character William Hill in “This Is Us“, died at the age of 66 due to an old lung problem, according to the magazine “People” this Saturday (19).
“Throughout his career, his warmth, beauty, generosity, kindness and heart have been felt by anyone who had the good fortune to know him,” the actor’s publicist said in a statement.
He leaves behind his daughter Jasmine Cephas Jones who is also an actress.
In 2021, Jones revealed to “The New York Times” that he struggled with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in secret and that he had received a double lung transplant the previous year.
He used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day for most of his life – a habit that he stopped only in 2017, when, in the middle of filming “This Is Us”, he ran out of breath and had to be rescued with an oxygen tank.
Already in 2022, he told “Today” that the recovery had been difficult and arduous and that he was very lucky. In the same year, he told “Entertainment Weekly” that co-stars and producers helped him to face the health problem, and that one of his biggest incentives to recover from the transplant was the idea of being able to perform in the play “Clyde’s” .
“My whole life has been the stage. The thought of not performing again seemed worse to me than death,” he stated to “The New York Times.”
Career
Jones began his career as an artist in Nuyorican Poets Cafe a multicultural New York institution, and his love of the stage continued throughout his career.
His most prominent role, however, was that of William Hill in “This Is Us”, in which he played the biological father of Randall Pearson.
For his work, Jones won an Emmy for best guest actor in 2018 and another in 2020, when his daughter Jasmine won the first Emmy. This made them first winning father-daughter duo of the award in the same year.
In addition to “This Is Us”, Jones also appeared in “Mr. Robot” (2015-2016), “The Get Down” (2016-2017), “Luke Cage” (2016-2018), “Who Are You, Alaska?” (2019) and “Truth Be Told” (2019-2023).
In cinema, his works include “Jogada Decisiva (1998)”, “Poucas e Boas” (1999), “Half Nelson” (2006), “Across the Universe” (2007), “Telhados de Vidro” (2014), “ The Spell of Christmas” (2018), “Our Life with Dogs” (2018) and “My name is Dolemite” (2019).
Before that, the actor was a member of the New York company LAByrinth Theater Company. Among his many theater roles was the character of Crooks in the 2014 Broadway production of Of Mice and Men.
For his performance in the play “Clyde’s”, Jones received a Tony nomination, the most prestigious award on the North American stage.
Your last role will be as elijah muhammad in the historical anthology “Genius: MLK/X”, for the fourth part of which he was cast in 2022. In the series, his character is a teacher and mentor of Malcolm X.
Source: CNN Brasil
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