For Denzel Washington, the death of actor Chadwick Boseman was personal.
Washington called Boseman a “gentle soul” in a fond remembrance more than two decades after he paid for Boseman’s tuition at the prestigious theater program at Oxford.
“He was a gentle soul and a brilliant artist, who will stay with us for eternity through his iconic performances over his short yet illustrious career,” Washington said in a statement after Boseman’s death was announced Friday, People reported. “God bless Chadwick Boseman.”
Boseman died Friday of stage IV colon cancer. He was 43.
Washington was a producer on one of the last films Boseman worked on before his death, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” But his connection to the “Black Panther” star goes back much farther.
Washington quietly paid for Boseman, and several of his Howard University classmates, to attend an acting program at England’s Oxford University.
Last year, Boseman shared the story in a speech honoring Washington before he accepted the the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Many of you already know the story that Mr. Washington, when asked by Phylicia Rashad to join her in assisting nine theater students from Howard University who had been accepted to a summer acting program at the British Academy of Dramatic Acting in Oxford, gracefully and privately agreed to contribute,” Boseman said in June 2019.
“As fate would have it, I was one of the students that he paid for,” he continued. “Imagine receiving the letter that your tuition for that summer was paid for and that your benefactor was none other than the dopest actor on the planet.”
“There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington,” he added.
According to People, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” based on the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by August Wilson, featuring Boseman and Viola Davis, is set for release sometime this year. A date hasn’t been revealed.
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