The Life of Singleton

John Singleton remains the youngest Oscar nominee for Best Director. He was just 24 years old. He was also the first Black person nominated for Best Director. Even with these early accolades, he went on to have a thirty year career packed with classics. From Poetic Justice with Janet Jackson and Tupac to the Fast and Furious franchise all the way out to Snowfall, which continues to educate and entertain after his death. Featuring groundbreaking interviews and sharp reporting, Thomas Golianopoulos is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Playboy, The Ringer, and others. His investigative feature writing includes pieces on a federal sex slavery case, the mysterious prison murder of a Hollywood actor, and the definitive story on Kobe Bryant’s rap career. Born and raised in Astoria, Queens, Thomas now lives in the Bronx with his wife and children.

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The Life of Singleton examines a life, gone much too soon, who made history in film in dozens of lauded projects.

As of this year, nearly one hundred years since the start of The Oscars, only six Black filmmakers have been nominated for Best Director. The first and the youngest was John Singleton.

John Singleton became a living legend at just 24 years old when he earned Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Boyz N the Hood, the sleeper hit of the summer of 1991 and one of the decade’s most important films. Though he wasn’t victorious on Oscar night, it didn’t detract from his achievements. Over the next three decades, he’d amass a Hall of Fame career featuring more classic films (Rosewood, Baby Boy), four number one hits (Poetic Justice, Shaft, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Four Brothers) and one of the top rated series on cable television (Snowfall).

In The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N the Hood to Snowfall, Thomas Golianopoulos reports on John Daniel Singleton, from his time as a driven film student at USC to his last days on the Costa Rica set of Snowfall. Singleton was an American original, a Hollywood maverick, and a South Central icon — no one repped LA harder than him. He created indelible moments on the screen and inspired and mentored a generation of filmmakers.

Featuring nearly 400 original interviews and sharp analysis, The Life of Singleton will take readers behind the scenes of the filmmaker’s work and unwrap the complex man behind it.