CHICAGO– Irma P. Hall, the veteran actress who brought warmth and authority to matriarchal roles in “Soul Food” and “The Ladykillers” and whose acting career took off after decades as a teacher, died Tuesday in Dallas. She was 91 years old.
His family announced his death on Wednesday. No cause was given.
Hall was best known to many viewers as Big Mama, the family’s stabilizing force in the 1997 film “Soul Food.” The role earned her an NAACP Image Award and led to a return as the character in the television series based on the film.
She received the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for her portrayal of Marva Munson, a Bible-reading landlady opposite Tom Hanks in the Coen brothers comedy “The Ladykillers” in 2004. Hall also appeared in Tyler Perry’s “A Family Thing,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” “Beloved,” “Patch Adams,” “Collateral” and Tyler Perry’s “Meet the Browns.”
Hall was 60 when “A Family Thing” landed him a major film role. She played Aunt T., a blind woman whose advice helps guide two half-brothers, played by James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall. The role brought attention to an actress who had spent years developing her talent on stage and in smaller roles on screen.
“I was just concentrating on developing this craft,” Hall said in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press. “I guess you never really know where you are, you probably think you’re a lower rung than you really are.”
Hall did not intend to become an actor. Born Irma Dolores Player on June 3, 1935, in Beaumont, Texas, she grew up in Chicago and later returned to Texas for college. She taught English and foreign languages in Dallas public schools for more than two decades.
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Her path to the screen began when actor and director Raymond St. Jacques heard her recite poetry in Dallas and cast her in his 1973 film “Book of Numbers.” Hall continued teaching while taking on acting roles, then made performance her full-time job in the 1980s. She also helped found the Dallas Minority Repertory Theater and remained involved in the development of young artists.
Hall’s career included theater, television and film. His credits ranged from the 1997 Clint Eastwood drama “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” to the 1998 films “Beloved” and “Patch Adams.” She also voiced Great-Aunt T. in the 2001 “Rugrats” Kwanzaa special.
In 2004, Hall was recovering from serious injuries suffered in a car accident, including open heart surgery, a broken arm and a crushed ankle, while leaving a Chicago recovery center to attend a private screening of “The Ladykillers.”
“I loved everything about it,” she told the Associated Press. “You never really know until you see it on screen.”
Hall said she heard from Hanks and the Coen brothers during her recovery. They had signed her pillow, she said. “Whenever I miss them, I hug them.”
In Dallas, Hall was also a longtime member and church mother of the Inspiring Body of Christ Church. Her family remembers her as a woman of faith who read to children at the church school and remained active in her theater ministry.
“She started as a classroom teacher, but ended up becoming a teacher for the world,” her daughter, Irma Hall Crayton, said in the announcement to the family.
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