Irma P. Hall, the actress who became a household name as Big Mama in Soul Food, has died at the age of 91.
Irma P. Hall, the actress who played Big Mama in Soul Food, has died. She was 91. She died on Tuesday, November 10, in Dallas, surrounded by loved ones. Her family announced the news the next day. No cause of death has been shared as of now.
“Irma P. Hall was a beloved actress, author, poet, educator and public speaker whose contributions touched countless lives throughout her remarkable career,” her family said in a statement. “Her legacy of talent, dedication and compassion will continue to inspire generations to come.”
A long career as a teacher before stardom
Hall never planned on becoming an actress. She was born Irma Dolores Player in Beaumont, Texas, on June 3, 1935, and grew up on Chicago’s South Side. She later moved back to Texas for college and spent more than two decades teaching languages in Dallas schools.
Her first role came almost by accident. Actor Raymond St. Jacques hired her to do publicity for his film Book of Numbers, but after hearing her read her poetry on set, he cast her in it instead. She was 37.
She kept teaching for years while taking smaller roles on stage and screen, and didn’t go full-time until 1984. In Dallas, she also co-founded the Dallas Minority Repertory Theater. Her big break came at 60, when she played Aunt T., a blind woman who guides two half-brothers played by James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall, in the 1996 film A Family Thing.
The role that made her Big Mama
A year later, she landed the part she’s best remembered for. In Soul Food, Hall played Josephine “Big Mama Joe” Joseph, the matriarch who keeps her family together with Sunday dinners. She later reprised the role in the Showtime series of the same name.
Her career kept rolling after that. She appeared in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Patch Adams, Beloved, Collateral and Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.
In 2004, she starred alongside Tom Hanks in the Coen brothers’ The Ladykillers as Marva Munson, a churchgoing landlady who catches on to a criminal scheme. The role earned her the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
It almost didn’t happen. Shortly before the film’s release, Hall was badly injured in a car crash in Chicago and needed emergency open-heart surgery. She made a full recovery and went back to work, continuing to act on TV until 2017.
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