Singleton’s family said on Monday that John died in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, after being taken off life support. Earlier this month, the director suffered a major stroke.
Director John Singleton, who made one of Hollywood’s most memorable debuts with the Oscar-nominated Boyz N the Hood and continued over the following decades to probe the lives of black communities in his native Los Angeles and beyond, has died. He was 51.
Singleton became the first black director to receive an Academy Award nomination, an honor he would say was compensation for the academy’s snubbing Lee and Do the Right Thing two years earlier, and was nominated for best screenplay. (Thelma & Louise won instead.) At 24, he was also the youngest director nominee in Oscar history.
