Director of boyz n the hood11/13/2022 Subsequent films included Poetic Justice, with Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, and Higher Learning, dealing with the racial fault lines in student life. He was 24 when he was nominated for best director and best original screenplay Oscars.īy his own admission, Singleton was an “angry young man”, and found it difficult to repeat Boyz n the Hood’s zeitgeist-altering impact. He drew on his own experiences, such as his father’s encounter with a policeman after seeing off an attempted burglary, as well as his friends’ for Boyz n the Hood, which he completed after successfully applying to USC film school. His parents were separated, and Singleton, like his lead character Tre, went to live with his father as a child. The film reflected his own background growing up in South Central Los Angeles. It was a commercial success, made stars out of lead actors Cuba Gooding Jr and Ice Cube (who was already well-known for being a member of hip-hop group NWA), and installed Singleton as the leader of a new generation of African American film-makers aiming for mainstream influence. “This was an agonising decision, one that our family made, over a number of days, with the careful counsel of John’s doctors.”īorn in Los Angeles in 1968, Singleton released the incendiary Boyz n the Hood in 1991 and its portrayal of gang violence and the drug epidemic made an immediate impact. “It is with heavy hearts we announce that our beloved son, father and friend, John Daniel Singleton will be taken off of life support today,” a spokesperson for the family said in a statement to Deadline. Singleton had been hospitalised following a stroke on 17 April.Įarlier on Monday, Singleton’s family announced that he would be taken off life support. "I've been in this business for over 26 years, and I haven't lost my soul." Singleton told the Television Academy Foundation in 2016.Boyz n the Hood director John Singleton, who became both the first African American and the youngest-ever film-maker to be nominated for the best director Oscar, has died aged 51. And he didn't forget to enjoy himself while he was at it. Throughout, he continued to challenge the film industry to tell the kinds of stories - and see the kinds of faces - he never had the opportunity to see when he was a film student. He also co-created Snowfall, an FX drama about the crack cocaine epidemic that returned Singleton to his roots in South Central LA. More recently, he shifted his attention to the small screen, directing episodes of Empire and The People v. His seminal first film was far from his last.Īmong other films, Singleton went on to direct 1993's Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson and a 22-year-old Tupac Shakur, and the 2000 blockbuster remake of Shaft. "I'm making you feel something for this environment. Because this is where I'm from, you know what I mean?" he explained. "If you see the films I make and if they are in an urban setting, I basically have an agenda to not only entertain, but for you to feel something and to say something. In 2002, more than a decade after the film's release, Singleton reflected on the sincerity of his project - and how that differed from some of the imitators born of its success - on NPR's The Tavis Smiley Show. Praying for him and for his family now.Ī post shared by Shonda Rhimes on at 7:36pm PDT But someone at USC had told him I was talented and he was kindly calling to offer me some words of encouragement. And one day, not long after Boyz N The Hood exploded on the scene, my phone rang. There was a time when I was struggling to pay my bills in film school and not sure this town was for me. At just 23 years old, fresh out of the University of Southern California's film school, the young filmmaker launched into the project that would become his signature achievement: Boyz n the Hood. Singleton wasted little time leaving his mark on the film industry. "John Singleton is a prolific, ground-breaking director," they said, "who changed the game and opened doors in Hollywood, a world that was just a few miles away, yet worlds away, from the neighborhood in which he grew up." "This was an agonizing decision, one that our family made, over a number of days, with the careful counsel of John's doctors," the family said in a statement released to NPR, adding that he "passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family and friends." The director, who made history with 1991's Boyz n the Hood as the youngest person and first African American ever nominated for a best director Oscar, died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital after his family took him off life support. Less than two weeks after John Singleton suffered a massive stroke, the trailblazing filmmaker has died in Los Angeles at the age of 51. The Boyz n the Hood director died after suffering a stroke. John Singleton attends last year's American Black Film Festival Honors in Beverly Hills, Calif.
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