Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Ron Simons dies at 63

By MARK KENNEDY
AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Ron Simons, an actor who turned into a formidable screen and stage producer, winning four Tony Awards and having several films selected at the Sundance Film Festival, has died. He was 63. SimonSays Entertainment, his New York-based production company, says Simons died Wednesday. Simons won Tonys for producing “Porgy and Bess,” with Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” starring Jefferson Mays, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” with Sigourney Weaver, and “Jitney,” with John Douglas Thompson. On the film side, Simons produced “Night Catches Us,” with Kerry Washington, Anthony Mackie and Wendell Pierce, and “Gun Hill Road,” with Esai Morales.