Chadwick Boseman, 43, of Los Angeles, California, passed on August 28, 2020. Chadwick was born on November 29, 1976. Boseman had made his debut as Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War (2016) and would go on to reprise the role in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Boseman was born in Anderson, South Carolina, the son of Leroy, who worked for an agricultural company and also as an upholsterer, and Carolyn, a nurse. He was educated at TL Hanna high school, where he first discovered an interest in the theatre when he wrote a play based on the shooting of a classmate, and at the historically black Howard University, Washington DC, where he studied directing. He also won a place on a summer theatre course at Balliol College, Oxford; one of his teachers at Howard, the actor Phylicia Rashad, arranged for his costs to be covered by celebrity friends of hers including Denzel Washington. After Boseman was cast in Black Panther, Washington joked: “Wakanda Forever, but where’s my money?

Black Panther was released at the height of #OscarsSoWhite, the backlash against black talent being overlooked by the Academy Awards, and in the aftermath of disparaging remarks that Donald Trump had made about Africa. It faced its own racist opposition in the form of a Facebook group (later shut down by the social media company) established to artificially lower the film’s score on the influential reviews aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. But the picture was an unambiguous critical success as well as a commercial one. Nigel Andrews in the financial times called it “crashingly enjoyable, frequently exciting and even, when it wants, borderline witty”.

His work after Black Panther included the thriller 21 Bridges (2019), which he also produced. Preparations for a Black Panther sequel were in the early stages. “The only thing I can say is that, for people who are hungry, the food is being prepared,” he said in 2019. His final role is in a film adaptation of August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, to be released later this year.