Chadwick Boseman, actor and star of Marvel’s Black Panther has died after a four year battle with colon cancer, his representatives confirmed. He was 43.
“It is with immeasurable grief that we confirm the passing of Chadwick Boseman,” said a statement posted to Boseman’s Twitter account yesterday evening. “Chadwick was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016, and battled with it these last 4 years as it progressed to stage IV. A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much… It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.”
A dynamic performer, Boseman’s short career saw him portraying multiple Black cultural icons–including Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and Thurgood Marshall — to both popular and critical acclaim.
The news of Boseman’s passing sparked numerous expressions of respect and sadness as his friends, co-stars and collaborators took to social media to honor the star. Boseman’s Marvel co-stars Sterling K. Brown, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, and Samuel L. Jackson, as well as a litany of prominent public figures, including Viola Davis, Ava DuVernay, Jordan Peele, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris all took time to recognize his profound cultural impact and the shock of his loss.
“This young man’s dedication was awe-inspiring, his smile contagious, his talent unreal,” Boseman’s Black Panther co-star Angela Bassett shared on Instagram. “So I pay tribute to a beautiful spirit, a consummate artist, a soulful brother…‘thou aren’t not dead but flown afar…’. All you possessed, Chadwick, you freely gave. Rest now, sweet prince.”
Born in Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, Boseman’s initial desire was to write and direct, graduating in 2000 from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts in directing. Although he at first treated his acting career as secondary to producing his own works, Boseman booked several one-off television appearances, before moving to Los Angeles after getting a season-long role on the ABC Family series Lincoln Heights.
A relative latecomer to Hollywood, Boseman broke out in 2013’s 42, a well-received Jackie Robinson biopic that marked the beginning of Boseman’s remarkable run portraying colossal figures of Black American history.
As he told The New York Times in 2019, he dug into the core of these men by searching their pasts, questioning what kind of experiences built them into the legends they became.
“You’re a strong Black man in a world that conflicts with that strength, that really doesn’t want you to be great,” Boseman said. “So what makes you the one who’s going to stand tall?”
That same method of finding the humanity in those American titans made Boseman the perfect fit for what became his best known role: T’Challa, the Black Panther and king of Wakanda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Boseman channelled his love of history into the role, bringing that same interest in the inner lives of great men to his portrayal of the fictional king.
“He’s very keen to put human experiences in historical context,” his Black Panther co-star Lupita N’yongo told The New York Times. “Even with a world that was make-believe, he wanted to connect it to the world that we know and could try to understand.”
The effort paid off. Black Panther became the ninth highest grossing film of all time, the second highest-grossing film of 2018 — behind only Avengers: Infinity War, in which Boseman also appeared as Black Panther — as well as the first comic book film adaptation to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Boseman and the rest of the film’s ensemble received the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
On social media, fans remembered not just Boseman’s cinematic presence but his humor, his sensitivity, and his respect for how impactful the film had been to the world at large. Among the videos circulating online following the news of his passing was a clip from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, in which Boseman surprised Black fans, after they recorded messages thanking Boseman for his Black Panther performance.
Continued below“For me,” one woman in the video said, “as the mother of a young son, my son’s childhood has been defined by Barack Obama and now Black Panther, so thank you.”
A prominent Black figure in Hollywood, Boseman took his role starring in a proudly, visibly Black blockbuster seriously, embracing the public’s response to the film. “It’s a joy to see… just the effect the film has on different people from various walks of life, no matter what race, gender or age,” Boseman told GQ in 2018. “To be a part of something that has affected people in different countries, that is humbling, and liberating.”
Boseman’s final film appearance will be in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, an adaptation of the August Wilson play. He is survived by his wife and family.
