Boseman’s stellar work will live on
‘Black Panther’ star died Friday at 43
Chad wick Boseman was just 43 when he died Friday after a four-year battle with colon cancer. He was a remarkable actor before “Black Panther” upgraded his profile and gave him a franchise that would have undoubtedly seen his career dotted with T’Challa/ Black Panther appearances for the next decade.
As Marvel’s iconic superhero, the king of the fictional African country Wakanda, Boseman offered grav- ity, ferocity and pride alongside a dazzling physicality that today, in retrospect, we can only wonder at what cost.
He was already, it’s just recently been revealed, having chemo treatments between and even while filming movies.
If there’s one thread that connects every Boseman performance, it’s his rare capacity to suggest a character’s dimension from the inside. He lets you see his characters think.
By slaying internationally at the global box office, “Black Panther” set an insightful course as the first-ever superhero movie with a Black protagonist, the first superhero adventure to have a majority Black cast and a Black director, Ryan Coogler (“Creed”).
For Boseman, “Black Panther” was but the latest in a pantheon of great Black icons.
In 2013, he was Jackie Robinson in “42,” the Black baseball player who defied racism to integrate Major League Baseball and ultimately rank among its most outstanding players.
His career spanned from playing the civil-rights pioneer to portraying the showbiz survivor skills of James Brown, The Godfather of Soul, in the 2014 “Get On Up.”
Brown had only recently died in 2006 when Boseman proved to be astonishing in his embodiment of the complexities that made the continually controversial funk and soul singer a headline-grabbing figure.
Boseman had considerably more leeway in “Marshall” (2017), where he was another towering Black figure in American history: Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Justice on the Supreme Court.
“Marshall” told of the then-NAACP lawyer’s pivotal 1940 case defending a Bridgeport, Conn., Black chauffeur from a wealthy white woman’s rape charges.
Chadwick Aaron Boseman was born, the youngest of three boys, on Nov. 29, 1976, in Anderson, S.C. While athletic, Boseman opted for an artistic career.
As he attended Howard University, Phylicia Rashad, the Tony-winning star of “The Cosby Show,” helped him enroll in a theater program at England’s Oxford University.
TV guest appearances led to films and a move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
For the record, he made four appearances as T’Challa/Black Panther: “Captain America: Civil War,” “Black Panther” in 2018, “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame.”
He was recently featured in Spike Lee’s Netflix Vietnam drama “Da 5 Bloods.”
His final screen appearance is also for Netflix co-starring opposite Viola Davis in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” a film version of August Wilson’s Broadway hit that was produced by Denzel Washington. No date has yet been announced.
Boseman is survived by his wife, singer Taylor Simone Ledward.