John Singleton

Singleton attends Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s 75th Birthday Celebration held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on September 18, 2006. Starfrenzy/Bigstock.com

Birth Name: John Daniel Singleton

Date of Birth: January 6, 1968

Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, United States

Date of Death: April 28, 2019

Place of Death: Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Ethnicity: African-American

John Singleton was an American director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He directed the films Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, all of which he wrote; Rosewood, Shaft (2000), which he co-wrote; Baby Boy, which he wrote; 2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers, and Abduction (2011). He also directed the music videos “Remember the Time” and “Act a Fool.” He co-created the show Snowfall, which he also wrote for and directed episodes of. His films were often set among urban, African-American, populations, and spotlighted themes of masculinity, identity, family bonds, and trauma. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Boyz n the Hood; he remains the youngest nominee in the category’s history, and was the category’s first African-American nominee.

John was the son of of Shelia Morgan/Ward-Johnson, a pharmaceutical company sales executive, and Danny Singleton, a financial planner, real estate agent, and mortgage broker. He had seven children, including a daughter with his former wife Tosha Lewis; two children with his former partner Vestria Barlow; a daughter, actress Hadar Busia-Singleton, with his former wife, Ghanaian actress, film director, and author Akosua Gyamama Busia; a daughter with his former partner, actress, model, and teacher Mitzi Andrews; and a son with Rayvon Jones.