Actor Chadwick Boseman wasn’t an instant success in Hollywood.
Like many actors, Boseman performed in various roles for a decade — mostly in television — before his big break came, playing baseball icon Jackie Robinson in the 2013 movie “42.”
From there, though, the actor — who died Friday after a battle with colon cancer — crammed a lifetime of iconic roles into a brief span, a premature loss made more tragic by the thoughts of where his career might have gone in the years ahead.
Playing Marvel’s Black Panther in that movie and a trio of other films obviously elevated Boseman’s profile. But he surrounded that superhero role with signature dramatic ones as historical characters, and was clearly well on his way to translating his popularity into the kind of multifaceted and enduring career that few actors achieve.
Not every hero wears a cowl or cape, as Boseman demonstrated via a filmography defined his ability to find the humanity in larger-than-life figures. In addition to “42,” he starred in “Get On Up,” playing singer James Brown in a biography chronicling his rise from poverty to stardom; and “Marshall,” portraying future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall earlier in his courtroom career and fight for justice.
In portraying the latter, he joined Sidney Poitier, Laurence Fishburne, and Danny Glover on the list of actors who appeared as Marshall on screen.
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