Ron Cephas Jones, the Emmy-winning actor best known for playing William Hill on NBC’s This Is Us, has died, ABC News has confirmed. He was 66.
A statement from his publicist notes that Jones died of a “long-standing pulmonary issue,” and adds, “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.”
Jones won two guest actor Emmys for his role as William Hill, the biological father of Sterling K. Brown‘s Randall Pearson, on This Is Us — one in 2018 and one in 2020. His daughter Jasmine Cephas Jones also won an Emmy in 2020 for her role in the Quibi series #freerayshawn, making them the first ever father-daughter duo to win Emmys in the same year.
Jones started his acting career on the stage, appearing in productions with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois, as well as New York’s Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Public Theater. He also appeared in various Broadway and Off-Broadway productions.
His TV credits include Mr. Robot, Luke Cage, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Looking for Alaska and Truth Be Told. He also appeared in movies like He Got Game, Sweet and Lowdown, Half Nelson and Across the Universe.
Jones also continued his theater career, appearing most recently in the Broadway show Clyde’s, for which he received a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination in 2022.
In 2021, he told the New York Times that the previous year, he’d received a double-lung transplant due to his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and spent two months in the hospital on and off a ventilator.
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