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Black Panther movie star Chadwick Boseman, an actor whose work celebrated African-American culture and pioneers, has died at age 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer, according to an announcement posted on his accounts Friday. social networks.
Boseman, a native of South Carolina who began his on-screen career in episodes of television dramas such as Third Watch, Law & Order and ER, passed away at home, with his wife and family by his side, according to the statement on Twitter. and Facebook. . He did not specify when he died. He resided in Los Angeles.
Boseman made his film debut with a small role in the 2008 sports biopic The Express, a drama based on the life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the first black player to win the Heisman trophy.
He then played other real-life characters famous for breaking America’s racial barriers, including soul singer James Brown in Get on Up, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in Marshall, and baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson in ” 42 “.
But the actor’s most memorable role was his portrayal of T’Challa, king of the fictional and futuristic African kingdom of Wakanda and the crime fighter known as Black Panther, in a major studio’s first superhero movie with a predominantly African-American cast. .
Embraced by global audiences, Black Panther became the second highest-grossing film worldwide in 2018, heralded for its vibrant celebration of African culture and applauded as a landmark for racial diversity in Hollywood.
The film was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture. It won three Academy Awards, in the categories of Best Original Music, Best Costume Design, and Best Production Design. It also won the Screen Actors Guild’s Top Award that year for Best Motion Picture Ensemble.
Boseman originated the movie role Black Panther two years earlier in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, and reprized the role twice more in 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.
In June, Boseman joined more than 300 black actors and filmmakers in signing an open letter urging Hollywood to move away from entertainment glorifying police brutality and corruption and invest in anti-racist content.
The letter was written amid a cultural and political reckoning with systematic racism in the United States in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
Tributes and expressions of shock made their way to Twitter from fans and other Hollywood figures, including Marvel movie co-stars Mark Ruffalo (the Incredible Hulk) and Chris Evans (Captain America).
The Twitter-Facebook statement said that Boseman was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2016, a disease that eventually progressed to stage 4 and was not publicly disclosed until his death, although he had noticeably slimmed down in recent public appearances and posts on social networks.
“We never know what people are putting up with,” Bernice King, daughter of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, wrote on Twitter in a salute to the actor. Humans. . . we are wonders. Thank you, Chadwick, for gifting us your greatness in the midst of a painful struggle. ”
