John Singleton

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John Daniel Singleton (January 6, 1968 – April 28, 2019) was an American film producer, screenwriter, and actor.

He was best known for his directorial Boyz n the Hood (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming the first African American and youngest person to have been nominated for the honor.

Singleton was a native of South Los Angeles, and many of his films, including Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), and Baby Boy (2001), all related to the contemporary urban environment.

He also directed Rosewood (1997) and the action films Shaft (2000), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), and Four Brothers (2005).

Snowfall, he co-created the television crime drama Snowfall.

For "The Race Card," the fifth episode of "The People vs. O.J.Simpson: The American Crime Story, he was nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Film, or Dramatic Special.

Early life

John Singleton was born in Los Angeles on January 6, 1968, the son of Shelia Ward-Johnson (later Morgan), a pharmaceutical company salesman, and Danny Singleton, a real estate agent, mortgage broker, and financial planner. Singleton writes about his childhood in a 1993 DIRT magazine interview with Veronica Chambers. "I was growing up, comic books, video games, and movies were my buffer against all the opioids, partying, and shit." "I grew up in a poor neighborhood." He attended Eisenhower High School, Blair High School, Pasadena City College, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Singleton was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi in Spring 1987 and graduated from USC in 1990. Singleton considered computer science but under Margaret Mehring's Filmic Writing program at the University of California, she was accepted. The course was designed to bring students right into the Hollywood system as well as as experienced writer/directors.

Personal life

Singleton was the father of seven children. Tosha Lewis, his first son, died in 1992, named after the lead character in Poetic Justice and poet Maya Angelou respectively.

Singleton has a son named Maasai Singleton (born April 3, 1996) and a daughter named Cleo "Cleo" Singleton (born September 6, 1998 with ex-girlfriend Vedra Barlow. Singleton married Ghanaian actress Akosua Gyamama Busia, the niece of Ghana's second Prime Minister Kofi Abo Busia, on October 12, 1996. Hadar Busia-Singleton, the couple's daughter, was born on April 3, 1997), and appeared in Tears of the Sun (2003) and other films. In June 1997, Singleton and Busia were divorced. Mitzi Andrews, an actor/model and mentor based in Toronto, Canada, had one daughter in 2010. With Rayvon Jones, he had a son, Seventeen, as well as Rayvon Jones.

Singleton was involved in a car accident on August 23, 2007, in which he collided with Constance Russell, a 57-year-old man from Los Angeles, struck a pedestrian. Singleton was not under the influence of alcohol or other drugs when he was arrested and released after being questioned. Russell died in the hospital later in life. The lawsuit was turned over to the District Attorney, but no charges were ever filed.

Singleton sluggishly chastised major studios for "refusing to allow African-Americans to direct black-themed films" on March 19, 2014. "They ain't letting the black people tell the tales," Singleton told an audience at Loyola Marymount University. "They want black people [to be] what they want them to be," he said. And nobody is strong enough to say that. They want black people to be who they want them to be, rather than what they are not. The black films are now — better known as black films — are fantastic. They're fantastic films. They're just products, but they are not real products. They aren't pushing the bar forward in a new way. If you want to make it homogenized, then you don't have anything that is special."

Danielle Young, a writer for The Roots who had interviewed Singleton in June 2017, sexually assaulted her after the interview and took a snapshot she shared on Instagram in November 2017.

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Career

Singleton made his film debut with Boyz n the Hood in 1991, a coming-of-age crime drama about three childhood friends growing up in South Central LA's crime-ridden neighborhood. The film starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Angela Bassett, Regina King, and Laurence Fishburne was both a critical and commercial success. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Singleton received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for his efforts. He was the youngest person nominated for Best Director and the first African-American to be nominated for the award at age 24. The United States Library of Congress rated the film "culturally significant" in 2002 and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Singleton went on to direct VFX-driven "Remember the Time" music video for Michael Jackson in 1992, which starred Eddie Murphy, Iman, and Magic Johnson. The album and the music video were well-received, and on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles and Number one as well as the Mainstream Top 40 chart, which included the song and music video. The Recording Industry Association of America has designated it as platinum (RIAA). The song reached No. 1 in nine countries, peaking at No.1 in New Zealand and No. 3 in the United Kingdom.

Singleton wrote and directed his second film, Poetic Justice, a romantic drama starring Janet Jackson, who plays Justice, but soon encounters a postal employee (played by Tupac Shakur) who helps her cope with grief after her boyfriend's death to gun violence. Critics generally blasted the film, but it received a Gold Globe Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Song for "Again," which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The film has a following, particularly for Jackson's chemistry, and is now recognized as one of Singleton's most popular films.

Singleton wrote and directed Higher Learning, a socially conscious drama about the heightened racial and social tension in a university campus in 1995. The film, as Poetic Justice, has mixed reviews. Singleton states, one of the 1990s' most influential rappers, tells him of his experiences with some of the 1990s' most popular rappers.

Following mixed reviews of Poetic Justice and Higher Learning, Singleton's fourth film, Rosewood, a historical drama based on racial violence during the 1923 Rosewood massacre in Florida, received mostly favorable feedback and was accepted into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear.

Singelton co-wrote, co-produced, and directed Shaft, a sequel-to-the-original 1971 film starring Richard Roundtree in the title role. The film, starring Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft's cousin, John Shaft Jr., received generally favorable feedback and was a box office hit, grossing over $107 million worldwide. Critically and commercially, the company has been very profitable.

Singleton wrote, produced, and directed Baby Boy, a coming-of-age comedy about Jody Summers (played by Tyrese Gibson) and Peanut, a 20-year-old man who fathers two children by two separate women (played by Adrienne-Joi Johnson) in 2001, but he still lives and learns in his daily life in Los Angeles's hood. The film received mainly critical feedback, with some of whom consider it to be a return to form for Singleton and one of his finest films.

Singleton's next film was 2 Fast 2 Furious (2004), the sequel to The Fast and Furious (2001) and the second installment in the Fast and Furious series. The film was a box office hit, grossing over $236 million around the world, making it the highest-grossing film in the series at the time, as well as the highest-grossing film of Singleton's career.

Singleton collaborated with writer-director Craig Brewer to finance and produce Hustle and Flow in 2005, only after it was clear that most major backers did not approve it for distribution. Terrence Howard, a Memphis hustler and pimp who is aspiring to be a rapper, appears in the film. The film, which also stars Anthony Anderson and Taraji P. Henson, received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Original Song, winning the latter.

Four Brothers, a blaxplosion-inspired adventure film starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, André Benjamin, and Garrett Hedlund, returned to Detroit, Michigan, to venge the murder of their adoptive mother. Critics generally disagreed with the film's success, but it did gross $92 million worldwide.

Singleton was a member of the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003.

Singleton was in talks with Ice Cube, who served with Singleton on Boyz n the Hood and Higher Learning in 2011, to produce a biopic of Cube's hip group N.W.A. Before F. Gary Gray was hired in August 2012, he had been a waiter. The film was released in 2015 to rave reviews and acclaim in the box office.

In 2013, Two years later, Singleton was hired as the writer-director of a biopic about rapper Tupac Shakur's life, work, and death. Singleton announced on April 3, 2015 that production was suspended. Singleton had stepped down as director after creative differences with Morgan Creek Productions, and Carl Franklin took over. Singleton also stated that he was planning to make a competing film about Tupac.

All Eyez on Me was eventually released in 2017 as All Eyez on Me, which was widely received by critics and fans, as well as Singleton's self-promotion of Shakur, prior to his death in 2019.

Singleton spent the remaining years of his career focusing on television after the release of the critically praised action thriller film Abduction (2011).

After directing episodes of the critically acclaimed TV series Empire and American Crime Story in 2017, Rebecca "Rebel" Knight, who focuses on Oakland police officer Rebecca "Rebel" Knight, who began investigating as a private investigator after her brother was killed by police, began working as a detective.

Snowfall, a crime drama co-created and executively produced by Singleton for FX, premiered on July 5, 2017. For the first two episodes with series creators Eric Amadio and Dave Andron, Singleton co-wrote the screenplays and directed the finales for the first two seasons. Franklin Saint, a young drug dealer from South Central Los Angeles, is portrayed in the series as a community is affected by the 1980 crack epidemic. This was one of Singleton's last projects before he died in 2019.

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