JOHN SINGLETON, ‘BOYZ N THE HOOD’ DIRECTOR, DIES at Age 51

John Singleton died Monday. He was a pioneer for Black directors. The 51-year-old director of “Boyz N the Hood,” “Poetic Justice” and the “Shaft” remake was removed from life support earlier Monday, 12 days after suffering a debilitating stroke. The Singleton family issued a statement saying that Mr. Singleton passed “peacefully, surrounded by his family and friends.” The family noted that like “more than 40% of African American men & women,” he had “quietly struggled with hypertension.” Samuel L. Jackson, whom Mr. Singleton directed in the 2000 remake of the blaxploitation classic “Shaft,” said Monday afternoon that he was “mourning the loss of a collaborator & True Friend John Singleton. “He blazed the trail for many young film makers, always remaining true to who he was & where he came from!!! RIP Brother. Gone Way Too Soon” Mr. Jackson continued. Raised in South-Central Los Angeles, Mr. Singleton burst onto the world cinema scene in 1991 with “Boyz N the Hood,” a film that, while not directly autobiographical, was about the life and the gang violence he had observed in that neighborhood. It starred Cuba Gooding Jr., then an unknown, and rap star Ice Cube. He was nominated for an Academy Award for best director at age 24, both the youngest person and the first black person to be so honored. His script for “Boyz N the Hood” also was nominated for an Oscar, though Mr. Singleton didn’t win either prize. The National Film Registry selected “Boyz” for preservation in 2002, just a decade after it was made and had kicked off a cycle of urgently realistic movies about young blacks struggling against violence, poverty and racism in America’s inner-city neighborhoods. Mr. Singleton went on to have a lengthy career, directing Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur in “Poetic Justice,” casting Mr. Jackson as the nephew of the legendary detective John Shaft and getting Richard Roundtree to bless the project by making a cameo, pushing such actors as Regina King and Taraji P. Henson into the spotlight, making the socially-conscious campus film “Higher Learning,” and helming a box-office blockbuster in “2 Fast 2 Furious.” Mr. Singleton’s highprofile producer credits include the critic favorite “Hustle & Flow” with Terrence Howard, the FX hit series “Snowfall” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.” He also directed part of the Simpson series, plus episodes of “Empire” and “Billions.”