Chadwick Boseman Net Worth

Biography of Chadwick Boseman

Chadwick Boseman is an American actor, director and screenwriter, best known for his two films where he portrayed iconic African Americans: baseball player Jackie Robinson in the biopic 42 (2013) and singer James Brown in the film The Way Up (2014). World fame came to him after the role of the superhero Black Panther from the Marvel films Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Black Panther (2018).

Childhood and youth

Chadwick Aaron Boseman was born on November 29, 1977 in Anderson, South Carolina to an average African-American family. Her father, Leroy Boseman, was an entrepreneur, and her mother, Carolyn, worked as a nurse. They did not live well, but they provided everything necessary for a happy childhood for their son. The boy was brought up in a religious way, with regular trips to church.

Chadwick grew up with two older brothers, Kevin and Derrick, and he also had a huge number of distant relatives. “When my grandmother died, she left a total of 115 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And this is only on the maternal side! ”, The actor recalled. Remembering his childhood years, the actor admits that racism was not uncommon in their state. In his youth, Chadwick was seriously fond of basketball – the actor loves this sport to this day. But in high school, he had a very tragic experience with the sport. Once, right during the game, his teammate was shot dead, and the police interpreted the incident as an “accident”. Boseman subsequently wrote and directed a play based on these events.

After graduation, the young man entered the historically “black” Howard University in Washington, from which he graduated in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in directing. Subsequently, Chadwick also graduated from the British American Academy of Drama in Oxford and postgraduate studies at the New York Film Academy. Initially, he was going to become a screenwriter and director, but for the general development he also studied acting.

After graduating, in 2002, Boseman briefly taught drama as part of a youth program at the New York-based Schomburg Center for African American Heritage Studies. He continued to write scripts for soap operas, crime dramas and other television series.

Career

For the first time on television, Boseman appeared in 2003, in an episode of the crime series The Third Shift. Chadwick’s early work also included small roles in Law & Order, Crime Scene New York, and more.

In parallel with filming in the series, Boseman continued to work as a playwright. In particular, he wrote the play “Deep Azure”, which was staged in one of the theaters in Chicago. For this work in 2006, Boseman was nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award, which was once received by the famous American actor Michael Shannon.

In 2008, Chadwick moved to Los Angeles and pursued a solid acting career, landing roles in the popular TV series Lincoln Heights and in his first feature film, The Express: The Story of Sports Legend Ernie Davis (directed by Gary Fleder). In 2010, Chadwick landed a major role in the television series Faces Unknown, which was canceled after its first season.

Chadwick’s first major role was in 2013, in Brian Helgeland’s film 42, the actor played famous baseball player Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball in the 20th century. When the casting for the role of the athlete took place, Boseman staged the play on Off-Broadway – by the way, at that time Chadwick was seriously considering the option of completely abandoning the acting profession and continuing his career exclusively as a director.

About 25 actors were considered for the role of Jackie Robinson, but Brian Helgeland approved Boseman without hesitation after the second audition. After that, Chadwick’s life plans changed dramatically.

In 2012, Chadwick starred in the indie film Bullet Wound (dir. Misha Webley), which went through a long period of post-production and was released a few weeks before 42. In 2014, Boseman appeared in lead roles in Ivan Reitman’s sports drama Draft Day (with Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner) and the biopic James Brown: The Way Up (dir. Tate Taylor) about a famous black soul artist of the 20th century .

In 2016, Chadwick appeared as the god of wisdom Thoth in the fantasy adventure film Gods of Egypt with Gerard Butler.

In the same year, Boseman was approved for the role of the superhero Black Panther from the Marvel blockbuster Captain America: Civil War. Black Panther, aka T’Challa, the prince of the state of Wakanda, is the first black superhero, Chadwick has been reading comics about him since childhood. In preparation for the role, Boseman viewed photographs of Masai warriors, watched the film Shaka, King of the Zulus, and listened to speeches by Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, and Barack Obama.

Soon Chadwick could be seen in the lead roles in the thriller The King’s Message and the biographical drama Marshall, where Chadwick appeared as Thurgood Marshall, an American lawyer and justice of the US Supreme Court, the first African American to hold this position.

Black Panther

While signing with Marvel, Chadwick learned that the company plans to give his character a solo film. And if his appearance in the “First Avenger” remained little noticed, after such a “benefit performance” world fame was provided to him. The Russian premiere of “Black Panther” was scheduled for the end of February, in the States it was seen months earlier.

Along with him, eminent black actors appeared in the film: Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker, the female lead Lupita Nyong’o and others.

In addition, in 2018 and 2019, the next films about the Avengers team were released: Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, in which Chadwick again played the Black Panther.

The actor noted that large-scale success came to him at the age of 41 – late in comparison with most actors. Chadwick said that black actors have to do double duty because the modern film industry is “painted white.”

Personal life of Chadwick Boseman

Although the paparazzi often noticed the actor with various companions, Chadwick preferred not to talk about his personal life.

Death

In early 2024, Chadwick gave fans a scare with a video showing just how haggard he was. There were suggestions that the actor was terminally ill, but people consoled themselves with the fact that Boseman was preparing for a new role.

On August 28, 2024, the media reported the death of Chadwick Boseman. It turned out that back in 2016 he was diagnosed with colon cancer in the third stage, and the efforts of the doctors were in vain. The actor spoke about the diagnosis only to the closest people. He underwent treatment, underwent surgery, but the tumor had already metastasized. Chadwick did not give up and hoped that in March 2024 he would be able to start filming the second part of Black Panther, but the disease turned out to be stronger.

On September 3, Chadwick was buried in the cemetery of his native Anderson. The school where he studied introduced a nominal scholarship as a tribute to the memory of the actor.

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