Ron Simmons, | Photo credit: AP
Ron Simmons, an actor who became a prolific screen and stage producer who won four Tony Awards and whose several films were selected for the Sundance Film Festival, has died. He was 63.
His New York-based production company, Simon Says Entertainment, said Simmons died Wednesday but did not provide the cause or other details.
“With heavy hearts we share the news of the unexpected passing of our dear, blessed and much-loved friend, Ronald Keith Simmons,” the production company wrote in a statement on Facebook.
Simmons won the Tony Award Porgy and Besswith Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murderstarring Jefferson Mays, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike with Sigourney Weaver, and low grade With John Douglas Thompson.
He co-produced “Hughie” with Forest Whitaker, “The Gin Game” starring Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones, “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations,” an all-black production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a revival of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” and the original work “Thoughts of a Colored Man.”
In 2022, after the first full season following the killing of George Floyd reignited conversations about race and representation in America, Simmons was pleased to see Broadway offering one of its most diverse Tony slates ever.
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“I can guarantee you I’ve never seen so many people of color represented across all the categories of the Tony Awards,” he said. The Associated Press. “I was very excited and impressed by it.” On the film side, Simmons produced The night catches up with usWith Kerry Washington, Anthony Mackie and Wendell Pierce, Gun Hill Road With Esai Morales and Judy Reyes, Blue Capricestarring Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond, and George’s Mother With Danai Gurira.
