Ron Cephas Jones

Ron Cephas Jones (January 8, 1957 – August 19, 2023) was an American actor born in Paterson, New Jersey, who built a career spanning theater, film, and television over several decades. He attended John F. Kennedy High School before enrolling at Ramapo College, where he initially planned to study jazz under director Arnold Jones. A lead role in a sophomore-year production of Cinderella Ever After redirected his focus to theater, and he graduated from Ramapo in 1978. Following graduation, Jones relocated to Los Angeles, where he drove a bus for the Southern California Rapid Transit District for four years. He subsequently lived in San Francisco, Arizona, and New Orleans before settling back in New York City in 1985.

His return to New York marked the beginning of his professional theatrical development. Jones became a regular presence at the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan's East Village, where a performance in a play based on the Billie Holiday song "Don't Explain" attracted the attention of a casting director. That connection led to his being cast in the lead role of the Tazewell Thompson production of Cheryl West's Holiday Heart in 1994. He went on to perform with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and played the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III with The Public Theater in New York City, among other Off-Broadway productions. In 2014, he starred as Prometheus in Prometheus Bound, directed by Travis Preston through the CalArts Center for New Performance.

Jones's Broadway career extended from 2011 to 2021, during which he appeared in Of Mice and Men and The Motherfucker with the Hat in addition to serving as an understudy or standby in other productions. His most prominent Broadway role came in Lynn Nottage's play Clyde's, for which he received a 2022 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play and a nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play at the 75th Tony Awards.

On screen, Jones accumulated a substantial body of film work beginning with He Got Game in 1998 and Sweet and Lowdown in 1999. He appeared in Paid in Full (2002), Half Nelson (2006), Across the Universe (2007), Glass Chin (2014), The Holiday Calendar (2018), Dog Days (2018), and Dolemite Is My Name (2019). His television credits included recurring roles on Mr. Robot (2015–2016), The Get Down (2016–2017), and Luke Cage (2016–2018), where he played Harlem chess master Bobby Fish. He also appeared in Looking for Alaska and Truth Be Told (2019–2023).

Jones became most widely recognized for his portrayal of William Hill, the biological father of Randall Pearson, on the NBC drama series This Is Us, a role he held from 2016 to 2022. The performance earned him four consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, with wins in 2018 and 2020, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award. Jones and British-born jazz singer Kim Lesley had a daughter, actress Jasmine Cephas Jones, born in 1989. He underwent a double lung transplant in 2020 after being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and died on August 19, 2023, at the age of 66, from what his agent described as a long-standing pulmonary issue.