Ron Cephas Jones, star of hit shows like Luke Cage and This Is Us, has died. According to the actor’s representative, he passed after battling with a “long-standing pulmonary issue.” He was 66.
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“Beloved and award-winning actor Ron Cephas Jones has passed away at the age of 66 due to a long-standing pulmonary issue,” the actor’s team said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE Magazine.
“Throughout the course of his career, his warmth, beauty, generosity, kindness and heart were felt by anyone who had the good fortune of knowing him,” the statement continued. “He began his career at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and his love for the stage was present throughout his entire career, including his recent Tony-nominated and Drama Desk Award winning performance for his role in Clyde’s on Broadway. Ron’s inner-beauty and soul was evident to the huge audience from his multi-Emmy award winning performance on This is Us.”
Jones won two guest-starring Emmys for his role on This Is Us, playing the father of Sterling K. Brown’s Randall Pearson. Shortly after his second Emmy win, the actor told the New York Times he had undergone a double lung transplant as a result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“I was in total denial,” the actor told the Times. “I told myself that it would pass, or that I was just getting older. I was afraid and didn’t want to change what I wasn’t ready to change.”
Born in 1957, Jones tallied his first film credits with 1994’s Murder Magic. For the next few decades, the actor focused on character and stage acting before hitting his big break with Mr. Robot in 2015. That led to his casting as Bobby Fish in Netflix’s Luke Cage and subsequently, his Emmy-winning role in The Last of Us.
“He moves through the world like a cool jazz man, but is also generous and a nurturer,” playwright Lynn Nottage previously said of Jones. “The same qualities that he brings to his acting are the qualities that he embodies in real life.”
Jones is survived by his daughter, Emmy-winning actor Jasmine Cephas Jones.
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Image Courtesy of Netflix
