When Chadwick Boseman was asked to take on the complex role of trouser-splitting soul icon James Brown in Get On Up, he initially refused.
The actor, who died from colon cancer a year ago today, aged just 47, once said: “I felt nobody should do this. I looked at footage of him dancing and I was, like, ‘Absolutely not… there’s no way’.”
But Boseman was persuaded to do it, and the movie won him critical acclaim and millions of new fans – as well as a new family in the Browns.
In an exclusive interview with the Mirror, Brown’s daughter, Deanna Brown Thomas, says: “It was impossible not to welcome Chad into our family, that was just the man he was.
“He was a humble young man. He was raised right. He came from a good family with good moral values.
“He was never like the Hollywood type of thing. Chad didn’t flow with that flare. That wasn’t him, but he had such magical star quality. He set an example to all he met but most importantly to the younger generation, particularly young black men.
“He was so like dad in that respect, in that hard work and people were everything.”
Brown, a music legend, died of heart failure on Christmas Day in 2006, aged 73.
Boseman, who also starred in hit films Black Panther, 42 and Marshall, insisted on meeting the singer’s family while filming Get On Up in 2013.
He visited Brown’s wife, Deidre “Deedee” Jenkins and children at their homes in South Carolina and Georgia.
Daughter Deanna, 52, said it was important to Boseman to learn every detail of her father, “good and bad”.
She says: “We got to know him well. Although he played my father, I looked at him like a younger brother or as a friend of my son. Chad became part of our family, and we loved him for it.
“Chad said that he always took something from the movies he had done, and it stayed with him forever, putting them into his future ones.
“So when he was doing Black Panther, there is a scene where he is walking into the lab, and the security guys are lined up dressed in red on the sides.
“As he’s walking in, he has this gangster walk. He’s like, ‘I’m bad’.
“He said it was his homage to James Brown.
“Every time I watch it, something goes through me because it’s like, I’m looking at my dad, like for real.”
Boseman’s Black Panther role made him a hero to young children.
Deanna says: “The Black Panther was the first black superhero for this generation. I’ll never forget the scene that greeted me when I spoke at Chad’s memorial in his home town. Children, three, four, five-year-old, six, seven, eight-year-old boys, little boys, were dressed up as Black Panther. They were out dressed as if it was Halloween. It shows the impact he had on children.
“My dad used to say you put an instrument in a child’s hand and you can change the child’s life – and he was right. The impact that positivity can have on people should never be underestimated. Dad and Chad were examples of both.”
Boseman battled colon cancer for four years before his death and secretly married Taylor Simone Ledward, 30, months before he passed away at their Los Angeles home.
After his death, it emerged that Boseman had helped many others without fanfare or favour – something Deanna often saw her father do, too.
Recalling one incident, she says: “We were in LA and he had the limousine stop. He got out and his security guards began jumping out because they’re trying to figure out what they were dealing with. I walked with him across the street. And there are homeless people on the sidewalk, under cardboard, or dirty blankets.
“Dad started giving them money, $50 here, whatever there. But he’s on this one young man who he said to, ‘Take this money, go get yourself something to eat, go clean yourself up, do something for you’.
“At that moment, it wasn’t about the money. It was about the hope he gave talking to that young man.
“Chad gave that same feeling of hope to many other young people.”
The James Brown Family Foundation, which is led by Deanna, is setting up an annual arts and music scholarship in Boseman’s name.
Deanna says: “What I saw in him was a work ethic. It was good to see.
“It was good to see a young African-American man from the south, just like my father, and his work ethic was top shelf. I noticed that early on because he was serious about what he needed to learn about my father.
“Look at the roles he played. Jackie Robinson, who changed baseball, Thurgood Marshall, who made a major difference in the justice system in America, and James Brown.
“Can you imagine the things he had to learn about each of those people, their lives, their struggles?
“He had the self-discipline that it took to be able to play those roles. He was an amazing young man.
“Chad will always be a member of the Brown family and we will always have an open door, open hearts, open arms, to his family. If and whenever they need us, we are here.”
