Less than two weeks after John Singleton suffered a massive stroke, the trailblazing filmmaker has died in Los Angeles at the age of 51. The director, who made history with 1991’s Boyz n the Hood as the youngest person and first African American ever nominated for a best director Oscar, died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital after his family took him off life support.

“This was an agonizing decision, one that our family made, over a number of days, with the careful counsel of John’s doctors,” the family said in a statement released to NPR, adding that he “passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family and friends.”

“John Singleton is a prolific, ground-breaking director,” they said, “who changed the game and opened doors in Hollywood, a world that was just a few miles away, yet worlds away, from the neighborhood in which he grew up.”

Singleton wasted little time leaving his mark on the film industry. At just 23 years old, fresh out of the University of Southern California’s film school, the young filmmaker launched into the project that would become his signature achievement: Boyz n the Hood.

SOURCE – NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO USA