Jackie Robinson Day is upon us and if current events are any indication, it needs to be celebrated with some exigency this year. As Robinson is rightfully and righteously remembered on ballfields across America, I’d like to remember my friend Chadwick Boseman, who played Jackie in the film 42. I first met Chad in the casting offices of Vickie Thomas. The search for Jack Roosevelt Robinson had begun, and Chad was the second person we met on what promised to be an exhaustive endeavor. He wanted to skip the small talk that generally precedes an audition. “I’d like to get right to it if that’s cool?” Chad chose to start with the most emotionally challenging of the four scenes he’d been sent. No warm up—just straight into the fire. As he finished, I knew he’d just cast himself in the film; the exhaustive search had taken 20 minutes. And then he was gone. I said to Vickie, “A movie star just walked out of the room.” She knew it too. Chad had been waiting for his chance, and when it came, he owned it.
About two months later, we stood on the field of UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium. We had to pass a bronze statue of the man, so it was pretty clear where we were. By this time, the studio has seen Chad’s casting tape, but this is a baseball audition, and 20 people have shown up to watch Chad get worked out. A professional scout for the New York Yankees (!) is here to run the show. Chad is plenty athletic: He played point guard for his high school basketball team, though he hasn’t played baseball since Little League. The scout throws Chad a ball (a scout for the New York Yankees, if I didn’t make that clear). When Chad throws the ball back, he “dirts” it. I don’t mean it reaches the scout on a hop or two; I mean he rears back and fires the ball into the ground at his own two feet! The world stops spinning; time stands still. Chad looks over at me for a beat and then nods: “I got this, Brian.” He picks up the ball and fires it back…. Bullseye. Chad nails the workout; he’s got the part.
We shoot in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. I walk into Chad’s trailer one day. He freeze frames the movie he’s been watching. There’s Clint Eastwood on the screen, from Coogan’s Bluff of all things. Chad says, “I’ve been studying him. I love the way he says nothing.” Harrison Ford arrives in Chattanooga—in the flesh, not on screen. His first scene is one of his most emotional in the movie. It’s when he finally answers Jackie’s thrice-asked question, “Why are you doing this, Mr. Rickey?” Chad simply needs to listen to his confession. But he not only holds his ground opposite Ford, he maybe even steals the scene just listening. Back behind those monitors, I think, “I love the way Chad says nothing.” When we’re done, Ford asks me, “Is that what he’s been doing?” It’s not a criticism. Ford is impressed.
Chadwick Boseman meeting Mrs. Robinson.Courtesy of Brian Helgeland.
On a sweltering day in Macon, Rachel Robinson makes an appearance. Legendary Entertainment CEO Thomas Tull, who embraced Chad as Jackie early on, has scooped her up in his jet and deposited her by the visitor’s dugout. Possessed of royal bearing that QE2 could only dream of, Mrs. Robinson meets the actors playing the Dodgers, and they announce who they are portraying. She’s delighted to meet the ones who treated her husband fairly but keeps the ones who didn’t at arm’s length. Chad has met her several times, but this is the first time she has seen him in uniform as her husband. As Chad moves to hug her, she puts an arm up to block him, “Get away from me with all that sweat,” she laughs. He smiles the most beautiful smile. “Come here,” he says, and then takes her into his arms. Mrs. Robinson melts. For a moment, she is with her beloved Jack again. Finally, we shoot a day in Brooklyn in and around the actual brownstone apartment Jackie and Rachel lived in in 1947. Chad arrives on set in costume, and he is nearly speechless. It turns out we’re shooting on the same street that he himself lived on before he moved to Los Angeles. He lived on Jackie Robinson’s street without knowing it! On his way to the set, old neighbors stop him. We haven’t seen you in a while. What are you up to? “Well, I just came back to play Jackie Robinson.” On that day, I started to believe in fate. Coincidences are just not that coincidental.
We are on an ADR stage rerecording a few lines of dialogue during postproduction. The ADR recordist keeps stopping the take. He’s picking up some metallic sound on his headphones. Finally, he asks if anyone has any loose change in their pockets. Chad sheepishly pulls about $10 in quarters out of his jeans. As he sets them on the table, he explains to me, “I gotta go do my laundry after this.” In response, the recordist’s voice over a speaker: “After this movie comes out, you’re never going to have to do your own laundry again.” Chad gives me a wistful look and whispers, “I like doing my own laundry.”
They’re screening the film at Dodger Stadium after a game on the huge video screens in the outfield. Ten thousand people end up staying to watch. The Dodgers have asked Chad to throw out the game’s opening pitch. He calls me a week out. “I can’t do it, man. I can’t go out there and throw the first pitch into the ground. You gotta do it.” I measure out 60 feet 6 inches in my backyard and practice. This is going to be a disaster, but better me than Chad. Ten minutes before my public humiliation, Chad comes over and says, “I got this.” It’s like the governor signed a stay of execution. Chad goes to the mound and throws a perfect strike.
circa 1945: A portrait of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ infielder Jackie Robinson in uniform. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Hulton Archive/Getty Images
After 42 was long gone from theaters, we used to go to Skye Tacos on Pico to catch up and trade schemes we had for the future. Chad was on a crazy ride, an overnight sensation if you ignore the decade of yeoman anonymous work that came before it. But if anyone could take a rollercoaster ride in stride, it was Chad. We would shoot the breeze for an hour or two every few months at this spot. On one particular day, we took our tacos outside to a sidewalk table. After a minute, Chad suddenly asked if I minded switching places. We do-si-doed. I sat the other way, wondering what was bothering Chad about this seat. Then I saw it, a block down Pico: an enormous rooftop billboard with Chad 25-feet-tall, leaning over a microphone as the godfather of soul, James Brown. I think he knew his days of sitting at Skye Tacos, being known simply for how friendly he was, were over. It was also at Skye that Chad told me he was in love. It was the real thing. And it was far and away finer than any old billboard.
In 2016, I got a phone call from that love, Simone Ledward, asking me if I could come to the hospital. A volatile health episode had landed Chad there. The details are private, but he was faced with life-changing news. An enormous future was opening up before him. But was it?
We talked about his hospital socks. The color he was wearing—an easy-to-spot reference for the staff—was a dire indicator of his current condition. We talked about how he needed to get out of those socks and into a less-serious palette. A few days later, he was in different colored socks. A clock was ticking, but the fight had begun. We would always discuss his illness obliquely. Chad, in fact, would never give cancer its name. We only ever talked about it in terms of socks. “What color socks do you got on today?” “I am doing everything I can to keep those socks off my feet.” His battle would be his own, shared only with those closest to him.
Brian Helgeland (L) and Chadwick Boseman (R) during Q & A before a special screening of “42” at Dodger Stadium on July 13, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.by Mark Sullivan/WireImage/Getty Images.
In 2020, because of the pandemic, Jackie Robinson Day—traditionally held on April 15 —was delayed until August 28. Chad died that day with his family by his side…on Jackie Robinson Day. Put that in your coincidence pipe and smoke it, ya’ll. His memorial was held on a beautiful day on a bluff in Malibu overlooking the sea. His casket rested under a canopy, and, one after the next, people stepped up to say their farewells. I watched from afar. Something was holding me back; I still can’t quite explain it. But I think I was afraid, just plain old afraid. Finally, I went down and stepped up before him. They say, “rest in peace.” If anyone needed a rest, it was Chad. He’s accomplished so much after 42 in such little time. All the films he made, from Black Panther to Ma Rainey’s, were filmed during and between countless surgeries and treatments. I had something I wanted to say to him. Except, there on top of his casket was a wooden cross, and printed on it was the number 42. Beyond the film, it was a hugely important number to him, a mile marker, a part of him that he carried. It gave him strength somehow. Right then, it took all mine away.
A year or so after Chad passed, I had my own staredown with cancer. I promised Chad I would fight like he fought. I didn’t have to. Mine was spotted early, a kindergarten version compared to his. Life is unfair, even when it comes to cancer. Cancer took Chad away, but in no way did it beat him. The King still wears the crown, the belt, and the mantle. Unequivocally, cancer did not beat him.
The number 42 has been retired by every team across baseball in honor of Jackie Robinson. His legacy, of course, is unbeaten and still fighting, despite the Department of Defense taking down a web page honoring his military service earlier this year. The number 42 is also retired in my heart, where Chadwick Boseman will always be loved and will always be with me.
