Trevor Rhone, the award-winning Jamaican playwright, director and actor who brought his island’s culture to the world as a writer of the groundbreaking film “The Harder They Come,” died on Tuesday in Kingston, Jamaica, where he lived. He was 69.
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Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times
Trevor Rhone in 1985. Mr. Rhone's plays were known throughout the Caribbean.
The cause was apparently a heart attack, his wife, Camella, said.
Renowned throughout the Caribbean for plays like “Smile Orange” and “Old Story Time,” Mr. Rhone helped pioneer Jamaica’s indigenous theater, bringing pitch-perfect dialect and character studies to the local stage.
“He loved the music of our language,” said his lifelong friend, the Jamaican actress Leonie Forbes, who studied with him in England.
The Jamaican actress and broadcaster Fae Ellington, a longtime friend, said, “If he wrote five words for you, they were the best five words.”
RIP you old fart
