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Film fans around the world are mourning the loss of beloved Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman who died at age 43 after a four-year struggle with colon cancer.
The news sent shockwaves across the internet, with Twitter crowning his account’s final tweet about his passing, “the most liked ever” and tributes pouring in from the likes of former US president Barack Obama, F1 star Lewis Hamilton and actress Halle Berry.
While celebrity deaths, especially when young, often attract such outpours of grief, the death of Chadwick was something more – the immortalisation of a cultural icon. In the last decade, there have been only a handful of other actors who came close to his portfolio of work shining a new light on the contributions of black people in American history.
After graduating in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in directing from Howard University, he completed a summer programme, sponsored by none other than Denzel Washington, at the British American Drama Academy in London.
Even though he initially only studied acting to learn how to connect with those he might direct, he found a penchant for it. And as he went through the usual struggles of an actor in Brooklyn, he committed to his culture and craft as the drama instructor at Harlem’s Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture.
His first such starring role came in 42 in 2013, where he portrayed the first African-American baseball player in Major League Baseball’s modern era. In surprising synchronicity, Chadwick passed away on pandemic-postponed Jackie Robinson Day.
He then went on to act as Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American US Supreme Court Justice, in Marshall before taking on the iconic role he will always be remembered for – King T’Challa aka Black Panther in the eponymous film as well as reprising the role in successive Marvel Universe films.
His last living role was as Norman Earl “Stormin’ Norm” Holloway in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, where perhaps presciently, he plays a model team leader forever idolised by his platoon.
Chadwick’s three most famous roles, two of which came after his diagnosis, made him a cultural icon but even before that, he was the epitome of the journeyman actor – committed to his ethos and craft even if real recognition did not come until his late 30s.
His final posthumous role will be as trumpeter Levee in the film adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, produced by one of Chadwick’s earliest patrons, Denzel. But perhaps his greatest legacy is going to be all the black kids who, inspired by his roles, believe they can be anything when they grow up, except perhaps, the forever king of Wakanda.
