Chadwick Boseman, star of the ground-breaking superhero movie “Black Panther” died on Friday after a private four-year battle with colon cancer.
Boseman was 43 before his death.
Here are some highlights to help you know the man “Chadwick Aaron Boseman” better:
1. Chadwick Aaron Boseman was born and raised in Anderson, South Carolina, to Carolyn and Leroy Boseman, both African-American.
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2. According to Boseman, DNA testing indicated that his ancestors were Krio people from Sierra Leone, Yoruba people from Nigeria and Limba people from Sierra Leone.
3. His mother was a nurse and his father worked at a textile factory, managing an upholstery business as well.
4. Boseman graduated from T. L. Hanna High School in 1995.
5. In his junior year, he wrote his first play, Crossroads, and staged it at the school after a classmate was shot and killed.
6. Boseman attended college at Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in directing.
7. Boseman wanted to write and direct, and initially began studying acting to learn how to relate to actors.
8. After he returned to the U.S., he graduated from New York City’s Digital Film Academy.
9. He lived in Brooklyn at the start of his career.
10. Boseman worked as the drama instructor in the Schomburg Junior Scholars Program, housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York.
11. In 2008, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.
12. Boseman got his first television role in 2003, in an episode of Third Watch.
13. That same year, Boseman portrayed Reggie Montgomery in the daytime soap opera All My Children, but stated that he was fired after voicing concerns to producers about racist stereotypes in the script.
14. His early work included episodes of the series Law & Order, CSI:NY, and ER.
15. In 2008, he played a recurring role on the television series Lincoln Heights and appeared in his first feature film, The Express: The Ernie Davis Story.
16. He landed a regular role in 2010 in another television series, Persons Unknown.
17. Boseman had his first starring role in the 2013 film 42, in which he portrayed baseball pioneer and star Jackie Robinson.
18. In 2013, Boseman also starred in the indie film The Kill Hole, which was released in theaters a few weeks before the film 42.
19. In 2014, Boseman appeared opposite Kevin Costner in Draft Day, in which he played an NFL draft prospect.
20. Later that year, he starred as James Brown in Get on Up.
21. In 2016, he starred as Thoth, a deity from Egyptian mythology, in Gods of Egypt. He also started portraying the Marvel Comics character T’Challa / Black Panther, with Captain America: Civil War being his first film in a five-picture deal with Marvel same year.
22. He headlined Black Panther in 2018, which focused on his character and his home country of Wakanda in Africa.
23. The film opened to great anticipation, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year in the United States.
24. He reprised the role in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which were released in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
25. Both films were the highest grossing of the year they were released, with Endgame going on to become the highest-grossing film of all time.
26. Also in 2019, he starred in ’21 Bridges’, an American action thriller film directed by Brian Kirk, as an NYPD detective who shuts down the eponymous 21 bridges of Manhattan to find two suspected cop killers.
27. In 2019, it was announced that Boseman was cast in the Netflix war drama film Da 5 Bloods, directed by Spike Lee. The film was released on June 12, 2020.
28. Boseman was raised a Christian and was baptized. He was part of a church choir and youth group and his former pastor said that he still kept his faith.
29. He was a vegetarian.
30. After several years of dating, Boseman became engaged to singer Taylor Simone Ledward in October 2019, and they later married in the same year.
31. Boseman was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016, which eventually progressed to a stage IV before 2020. He had not spoken publicly about his cancer diagnosis.
32. During treatment (multiple surgeries and chemotherapy), he continued to work and completed filming for several films, including Marshall, Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and others.
33. Boseman died at his home of complications related to colon cancer on August 28, 2020, with his wife and family by his side.
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