Summer 2018Photograph By Melodie Mcdaniel

Unknown to Esquire or the rest of the world, Boseman was already battling the cancer that would kill him at the age of forty-three when we anointed him the “New King of Hollywood” in 2018. Boseman conquered the screen playing real-life heroes Jackie Robinson (42), James Brown (Get On Up), and Thurgood Marshall (Marshall), and became a major star as Black Panther’s T’Challa.