Chadwick (Chad) Aaron Boseman was born on November 29, 1976, in Anderson, S.C. to Leroy and Carolyn (Mattress) Boseman.
Graduating from T. L. Hanna High School, he was active in speech and debate and played on the basketball team. In high school, he wrote his first play,Crossroads, after a friend was shot and killed. He graduated from Howard University with a B.S. of Fine Arts in Directing. Boseman was trained in a variety of martial arts, which helped with some of his roles in action films. Boseman began working as a writer, director, and actor first in stage productions and eventually moving to film productions where he landed his first major role as a series regular onPersons Unknownin 2010. His breakthrough performance came in 2013 as he portrayed baseball player Jackie Robinson in the biographical film42. Later he starred as singer James Brown in Get on Up, and as NAACP legal defense and educational fund lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall inMarshall.
Boseman achieved international fame for playing the superhero Black Panther making him the first Black actor to headline a Marvel film. His work earned him a NAACP Image Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a spot on the 2018Time100.
Boseman passed away in 2020 after a private battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife, Taylor Simone Ledward, as well as a big loving family that he cherished. His final film,Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, was released posthumously garnering him an Academy Award nomination and receipt of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Male Actor in a Lead Role.
