Celebrity Chadwick Boseman's life in photos By Sydney Bucksbaum Sydney Bucksbaum Sydney Bucksbaum is a writer at Entertainment Weekly covering all things pop culture – but TV is her one true love. She currently lives in Los Angeles but grew up in Chicago so please don't make fun of her accent when it slips out. EW's editorial guidelines Published on August 29, 2020 02:55AM EDT Close Remembering Chadwick Boseman Matt McClain for The Washington Post via Getty Images On Aug. 28, 2020, it was announced that Marvel's Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman died at 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer. Take a look back at his powerful life and career playing icons and superheroes — while building his own legacy of being a real-life superhero. 2012 Ray Mickshaw/WireImage Boseman was born Nov. 29, 1976, in South Carolina. After graduating from Howard University in 2000 with a degree in directing, he went to film school in New York and taught drama classes before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Here, he's pictured at the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where his indie flick The Kill Hole had its premiere. 2012-2013 Bobby Sands/Wireimage After landing TV roles on Law & Order, CSI: NY, ER, Lincoln Heights, and Persons Unknown, Boseman's first starring role came with one of his most iconic projects: 42, in which he played baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson. The actor was snapped smiling on set while filming the movie in New York City. 2013 Alex Wong/Getty Images Michelle Obama hosted Boseman as well as Harrison Ford and Rachel Robinson, widow of the late baseball player Jackie Robinson, at the White House to discuss 42 and the cultural importance of the film highlighting the life of the first African American player in Major League Baseball. 2013 Mark Sullivan/WireImage Before a special screening of 42 at Dodger Stadium, Boseman threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies. 2013 Kevin Winter/Getty Images Boseman posed on the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of 42 with costar Harrison Ford, who played Branch Rickey, a.k.a. the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers manager who made history by signing Jackie Robinson to the team. 2014 Jeff Vespa/VF14/WireImage Four years before he would go on to star with Lupita Nyong'o in Black Panther, they were photographed together at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party looking every bit as regal as their future onscreen royal love interests. 2014 D Stevens/Universal After portraying the historically significant role of Jackie Robinson, Boseman continued to dedicate his career to playing legendary heroes by starring in Get on Up, the James Brown biopic, and later in 2017's Marshall playing Thurgood Marshall. 2014 Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images After 42 and Get on Up, Boseman went on to star in films like Draft Day and Gods of Egypt before it was announced that he was joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as superhero T'Challa, a.k.a. Black Panther, for his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War. The news was revealed at a Marvel Studios fan event alongside MCU stars Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans. 2016 Kevin Winter/Getty Images A few months before Boseman's MCU debut, he and Evans presented together at the 88th Academy Awards. 2017 Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Entertainment Weekly The summer before Black Panther's release, Boseman stopped by EW's annual Comic-Con party in 2017 and was snapped while hanging out with Stranger Things star Joe Keery. 2017 Kevin Winter/Getty Images Two late Marvel legends in one photo: Boseman joined the legendary Stan Lee (who died in 2018 at 95) onstage at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Grants Banquet in 2017. 2018 Ryan Coogler and Chadwick Boseman on the set of 'Black Panther'. Matt Kennedy/Marvel Studios Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler, made history in many ways. Along with being the first Black superhero to headline a film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it also featured a predominantly Black cast, broke multiple box office records, and was the first superhero film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. 2018 Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Here, Boseman was photographed while attending the European premiere of Black Panther in London during its whirlwind release. 2018 Emma McIntyre/Getty Images Boseman's family revealed in a statement released after his death that the actor was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016 and quietly battled it for years as it progressed to stage IV. Throughout those four years, he "continued filming during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy," further proving that he really was a superhero in real life, not just onscreen. Here, he's pictured attending the 2018 MTV Movie and TV Awards promoting Black Panther's release, his first solo MCU film. 2018 Kevin Winter/Getty Images Black Panther's effect on pop culture was profound, and Boseman was proud to accept the award for Best Performance in a Movie for Black Panther at the 2018 MTV Movie and TV Awards, but then gave it to James Shaw Jr., a man who fought off a gunman at a Tennessee Waffle House earlier that same year. 2018 Kevin Mazur/WireImage Boseman attended and presented at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018, just a month after Black Panther's release. The film would go on to be nominated the following year for Best Picture. 2018 Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock This photo of Boseman with the late Kobe Bryant on the red carpet at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018 holds so much more meaning now just two years later as the world lost both Black icons only months apart. 2018 Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images Howard University alum Boseman was invited as a guest speaker for the 2018 commencement ceremonies, and gave the Black Panther "Wakanda forever!" salute to the crowd. 2018 Will Heath/NBC Leading up to Infinity War, Boseman hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time during season 43. He began his monologue calling out how he wasn't asked to host until two months after the release of Black Panther, proving how much that film's influence was underestimated pre-release. He was joined onstage by SNL star Kenan Thompson, who was dressed as ThunderCats' Panthro and joked that Boseman was not the first onscreen "Black space cat with spiky suspenders." 2018 Will Heath/NBC During that same SNL episode, Boseman participated in the installment's "Black Jeopardy!" sketch alongside Leslie Jones, Chris Redd, and Thompson. 2018 Andrew Lipovsky/NBC The charismatic and kind actor always made an effort to show love back to his fans, like when he surprised people who thought they were taping a video message for him on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He was actually hiding behind the curtain the entire time and popped out each time a new fan stepped up, making for this heartwarming montage. 2018 Steve Granitz/WireImage Just a few months after his MCU debut, Boseman reprised his role as Black Panther in Avengers: Infinity War, kicking off the final run of films in Marvel's Phase 3. 2018 Charley Gallay/Getty Images The leader of the MCU posed with its newest hero at the Infinity War premiere. 2018 Randy Holmes/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Some Infinity War stars, including Boseman, Josh Brolin, Sebastian Stan, Karen Gillan, and Chris Hemsworth, remained tight-lipped about the actual film when they stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live, but they did reveal hilarious behind-the-scenes stories from filming, such as what everyone stole from the set. 2018 ©Marvel Studios 2018 Here, Boseman's T'Challa is pictured alongside the Wakandan army including M'Baku (Winston Duke), Captain America (Evans), and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Stan) during Infinity War's climactic battle scene. 2018 Cindy Ord/Getty Images Following the astounding success of Black Panther, it was announced that same year that Boseman would return for a sequel standalone film, which was slated to hit theaters in May 2022 but had not yet begun filming. He was also expected to lend his voice to the animated Disney+ Marvel series What If...?, but it's unclear whether he recorded the voiceover before his death. "Our hearts are broken and our thoughts are with Chadwick Boseman's family," Marvel Studios said in a statement on Twitter. "Your legacy will live on forever." 2019 Terence Patrick/Getty Images Kicking off an incredible year, Boseman and his Black Panther costars Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Michael B. Jordan, and Andy Sirkis celebrated their win for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards. 2019 Jim Smeal/REX/Shutterstock In honor of Black Panther's historical Oscar nomination, EW dedicated the 2019 Oscars issue to the film, and featured photos of Boseman in his costume. 2019 Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal via Getty Images Black Panther stars Gurira, Nyong'o, and Jordan joined Boseman onstage to present during the 76th Golden Globe Awards... and gave the signature Wakanda salute to thunderous applause. 2019 Charley Gallay/Getty Images While battling cancer, Boseman never stopped showing up, doing charitable work, and even helping to promote projects he wasn't even in, like here, where he's pictured attending the Netflix world premiere of The Black Godfather. 2019 Rob Latour/Shutterstock When Denzel Washington was honored with the 47th AFI Life Achievement Award, Boseman took to the stage to call him the G.O.A.T. "There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington," he said while honoring Washington's contributions to his profession and the actors who came up behind him. "Not just because of me, but my whole cast, that generation stands on your shoulders." He also shared a story of how as an undergraduate at Howard University, Washington and Phylicia Rashad provided funding for Boseman and a group of other students to take part in a summer acting program at the British American Drama Academy at Oxford University. 2019 Presley Ann/Getty Throughout his career, in addition to playing influential Black figures, Boseman used his power to push for better representation onscreen. At the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards, he delivered a memorable speech, telling the audience, "We know what it's like to be told there's not a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on. We know what it's like to be the tail, but not the head. We know what it's like to be beneath, but not above. And that is what we went to work with every day. Because we knew not that we would be around during awards season or that it would make a billion dollars, but we knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world — that we could be full human beings in the roles that we were playing." 2019 Steve Granitz/WireImage While he may be best known for his work in the MCU, Boseman continued to make other movies at the same time that he was playing a superhero. In 2019, he re-teamed with Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame filmmakers the Russo Brothers (Anthony and Joe Russo) for crime thriller 21 Bridges. He also recently starred in Spike Lee's war drama Da 5 Bloods and completed filming on the upcoming Netflix film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which is based on August Wilson's play and is expected to be Boseman's final film appearance. 2019 Brad Barket/Getty Images 21 Bridges starred Boseman as an NYPD detective who, after uncovering a massive conspiracy, joins a citywide manhunt for two young cop killers, shutting down all of Manhattan's 21 bridges to prevent the suspects from escaping the city. Here, he's pictured alongside his costars Sienna Miller and Taylor Kitsch. 2019 Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Following the news of his death, Boseman's fellow MCU stars including Liam Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, and Brie Larson (pictured here with Boseman at the 2019 premiere of Captain Marvel), paid tribute to him on social media. 2020 Kevin Mazur/Getty Images In February, the month before the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down, Boseman attended the 69th NBA All-Star Game in Chicago with his wife Taylor Simone Ledward. News of his marriage to the singer was revealed by his family following his death.