Chadwick Boseman had a unique ability to breathe life into legendary characters. Chadwick Boseman wasn’t an overnight success. Like many actors, he 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. 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. Boseman’s landmark work in those Marvel blockbusters will be played and replayed across the years. Yet his more modestly scaled forays into America’s past represent an equally rich part of his legacy, in a way that further cements his place in that history.
