The actor has been battling colon cancer since 2016 and died at home with his family and wife by his side. according to a statement posted on his Twitter account. A true fighter, Chadwick preserved through it all, and brought you so many of the movies you have come to love so much, “the statement said. Actor Chadwick Boseman, who played black icons Jackie Robinson and James Brown before finding fame as the regal Black Panther in the Marvel cinematic universe, has died of cancer, his representative said, He was 43. Boseman died at his home in the Los Angeles area with his wife and family by his side, his publicist Nicki Fioravante said on Friday. Boseman had not spoken publicly about his diagnosis. It is believed he married his long-term partner, the singer Taylor Simon Ledward, earlier this year. The couple had no children.
Born in South Carolina, Boseman graduated from Howard University and had small roles in television before his first-star turn in 2013. A South Carolina native, Boseman graduated in 200 from Howard University a historically Black colleague in Washington, DC while there, he also attended the British American Drama Academy at Oxford in 1996 according to Howard’s website. Chadwick’s passing is absolutely devastating said Kevin Feige president of Marvel Studios and Chief creative officer of Marvel in a statement. He was as smart and kind and powerful and strong as any person he portrayed, Now he takes his place alongside them as an icon for the ages.
Boseman completed one last performance, in an adaption of August Wilson’s Netflix movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the film, in which Boseman stars alongside Viola Davis, finished shooting last summer. Even at the outset of his Hollywood career, Boseman was clear-eyed about and even skeptical of the industry in which be would become an international star. Boseman originated the Black Panther movie role 2 years earlier in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War and reprised the part twice more in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. But his most memorable role was his 2018 performance as T’Challa, king of the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda and the crime fighter known as Black Panther in the first major studio superhero movie featuring a predominately African-American cast.
The movie went to become one of the highest-grossing films of the year and was nominated for 6 Oscars, including best picture, It won 3 Academy Awards in the best original score, best costume design, and best production design categories.