RIP Ron Cephas Jones: Emmy-Winning ‘This Is Us’ Star Dies at 66

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Actor Ron Cephas Jones, best known for his role on the TV show This Is Us, has died at the age of 66. The Emmy-winner survived a double lung transplant in 2020 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center but had been struggling with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. An official statement said the condition was the cause of his early passing.

Jones was a talent on Broadway as well as on screen. His career began in theater productions in Chicago and New York before transitioning to film and television. He was cast as William Hill in the NBC drama series This Is Us, playing the biological father of the character Randall Pearson, played by Sterling K. Brown. Jones' emotive performance eventually earned him the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2018 and 2020. “Ron was so willing to be vulnerable, willing to explore wherever the scene would take us—to a place of anger, or a place of humility, or a place of deep love or sorrow,” actor Octavia Spencer writes of the star. “Wherever it took us, he was happy to go.”

When Jones won an Emmy in 2020, his daughter Jasmine Cephas Jones was awarded an Emmy for her performance as Tyisha in the short series #Freerayshawn, which made the pair the first father-daughter winners in the same year. “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 says. “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.”

After Jones' operation in 2020, he worried that would never be able to perform again and praised his group of friends for helping him through the difficult period. “You cats held me when I was struggling and you didn't let me go. You've been there for a very difficult part of my life. I'm a walking miracle,” he said in 2022. “My whole life has been the stage. The idea of not performing again seemed worse than death.” In Jones' last credited role, he plays Elijah Muhammad, the mentor of Malcolm X, in the fourth season of Genius, an anthology TV series on Disney+.