SHOOTING STAR (REMEMBERING CHADWICK BOSEMAN)

 

The passing of any rising star rattles the public.

However the news that 'Black Panther' star Chadwick Boseman had died after battling colon cancer is particularly shocking as no-one outside a tight circle of family and friends knew he had been battling the disease for four years.

It will have a particular resonance for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who will not only remember him as the Black Panther but as a star who conclusively proved that an African American dominated franchise, the ninth biggest film of all time, could dominate the box office and earn the first Best Picture Oscar nomination for a superhero movie.

Born in Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, he had recently caught the eye of audiences in Spike Lee's Vietnam War adventure  'Da 5 Bloods' and audiences believed he was clearly destined for great things.

His mother Carolyn was a nurse and his father Leroy worked in a textile factory and also managed an upholstery business.

At high school, Chadwick showed an interest in performing - even writing a play 'Crossroads' in his junior year after the fatal shooting of a classmate.

He studied at Howard University in Washington DC, graduating with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in directing and was mentored by 'The Cosby Show' star Phylicia Rashad.

With her help, he and some fellow students raised funds to cross the Atlantic and attend the midsummer program in Oxford of the British American Drama Academy.

They would visit the West End whose theatres would leave a huge impression on him.

Determined to act and direct, Boseman returned to New York to study at the Digital Film Academy.

While living in Brooklyn, he was also briefly a drama instructor at the Schomburg Junior Scholars Program in Harlem.

However in 2008, he decided to go to Los Angeles and make a go at an acting career.

Boseman had previously built up some valuable small screen experience, appearing in an episode of the NBC emergency services drama 'Third Watch' and on the ABC daytime soap 'All My Children'.

He would eventually be replaced on the soap by his future 'Black Panther' co-star Michael B Jordan and later revealed he had angered its producers by challenging racial stereotyping.

More experience of working on TV shows would be acquired with roles in episodes of 'ER', 'Law and Order,' 'CSI:NY,' and 'Cold Case.'

Boseman would continue to write plays too, including 'Deep Azure' for the Congo Square Theatre Company in Chicago which was shortlisted for a Joseph Jefferson Award in 2096.

His decision to head to LA and really make a go at forging a screen career, started to pay off with a recurring role as the Iraq War veteran Nate Ray Taylor on the ABC Family drama 'Lincoln Heights' which ran for four seasons from 2008.

Gary Fleder directed Boseman in his first feature film 'The Express: The Ernie Davis Story' about the first African American to win the US College Football Heisman Trophy and which starred Rob Brown, Dennis Quaid and Saul Rubinek.

However despite favourable reviews, the film struggled at the box office.

There would be another high profile TV role as a Muslim US Marine in NBC's mystery drama 'Persons Unknown' about strangers who find themselves imprisoned in a ghost town.

Boseman would land one off appearances in TV shows like 'Lie to Me,' with Tim Roth, 'The Glades,' 'Castle,' 'Fringe,' 'Detroit 1-8-7' and 'Justified'.

This paved the way for his first big screen lead in 2012 in Mischa S Webley's action thriller and directorial debut 'Kill Hole' which failed to really set the box office alight but brought him to the attention of other movie producers.

His breakthrough movie role came a year later as the groundbreaking Major League Baseball legend Jackie Robinson in Brian Helgeland's '42' where he found himself acting alongside Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie and André Holland.

Helgeland's film fared well at the box office and earned decent reviews, with Boseman receiving particular praise for his assured lead performance.

Now firmly on the radar of Hollywood producers, Boseman took on the role of another legend, the singer James Brown in the 2014 biopic 'Get On Up,' directed by Tate Taylor and written by the English screenwriting duo of Jez and John Henry Butterworth.

Co-starring Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Dan Aykroyd, the film drew enthusiastic reviews with Boseman's performance again coming in for praise but it barely made a box office profit.

In Ivan Reitman's 2014 sports drama 'Draft Day,' Boseman found himself playing a hotshot draft pick on the Cleveland Browns football team with Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Denis Leary and Frank Langella among the cast.

Reitman's film laboured to make a small box office profit and the reviews were lukewarm.

2016, however, would prove to be a significant year for Boseman's elevation as a Hollywood lead and action star.

He was cast as the Egyptian God of wisdom, Thoth in Alex Proyas' big budget action fantasy adventure 'Gods of Egypt' with Nicolai Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler and Geoffrey Rush.

Critically panned, it nevertheless made its budget back but provided useful green screen experience for him.

There was another lead in the revenge thriller, Fabrice Du Welz's 'Message from the King' in which he played a South African who travels from Cape Town to LA to avenge his sister's death 

The film was premiered at the Toronto Film Festival but was acquired by Netflix who made it available a year later when it was clear Boseman was about to have a major career boost.

Anthony and Joe Russo cast Boseman as the African noble and superhero T'Challa/The Black Panther in their Marvel Avengers box office smash 'Captain America: Civil War' in which he appeared opposite Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr and the rest of the gang.

It would be two years before T'Challa would get his own movie, with 'Fruitvale Station' and 'Creed' director Ryan Coogler helming 'Black Panther.'

The significance of 'Black Panther' for African audiences and their diaspora cannot be underestimated, giving audiences around the world their first major superhero of African origin.

And to understand its impact, just watch his appearance on 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon when he surprised audience members enthusing about the movie.

A huge box office success - it generated over $1.3 billion in box office receipts on a $200 million budget - and was dominated by an African American and British cast that included Michael B Jordan, Lupita N'Yongo, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett and Winston Duke and also featured Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis.

Boseman would reprise the role in the Russo Brothers' 'Avengers: Infinity War' that year and also in last year's ''.

There was another eye catching role as an African American icon, the US Supreme Court judge Thurgood Marshall in Reginald Hudlin's 2017 biopic 'Marshall' with Josh Gad, Dan Stevens, James Cromwell and Sterling K Brown.

Boseman's performance came in for particular praise in a film which deserved to do better at the box office.

He would earn decent reviews for his performance as a NYPD detective who shuts down Manhattan in Northern Irish director Brian Kirk's gritty action thriller '21 Bridges' with Sienna Miller, Keith David and JK Simmons.

Spike Lee gave him a pivotal role as a Vietnam platoon leader "Stormin' Norman" Earl Holloway whose death haunts his friends and provides the moral compass for a questionable trip decades later back to the Vietnam jungle in the Netflix film 'Da 5 Bloods'.

Post-production was taking place when Boseman passed away on what would be his last film role in George C Wolfe's adaptation of August Wilson's play 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'.

There is no doubt that Hollywood has been shocked by his swift passing, with Denzel Washington, Chris Evans, Halle Berry, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Whoopi Goldberg and even Democratic Party Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leading tributes to him.

In an interview with GQ Magazine in 2018, Boseman spoke of his pride at the cultural mpact that 'Black Panther' had.

Yet he was also determined to not let the role define him.

"I try to remove myself from the impact of the movie because I have to get back to work," he told the magazine who awarded him International Man of the Year.

"I can't rest on my laurels. At the same time, it's a joy to see, even more so than this award, just the effect the film has on different people from various walks of life, no matter what race, gender or age. 

"To be a part of something that has affected people in different countries, that is humbling and liberating."

The tragedy of Boseman's death after a four year battle with cancer is not just that it robs us of future appearances by him as an iconic Marvel superhero.

It's that audiences cannot help feeling he had a lot of great performances to come.

But the fact that he delivered performances of the quality of the Black Panther, '21 Bridges' and 'Da 5 Bloods' while privately battling colon cancer is a testament to his strength and skill as an actor.

(Chadwick Boseman died on August 28, 2020 at the age of 43)