Irma P. Hall, the late actress known for playing pragmatic matriarchs in Food for the soul and the Coen brothers’ adaptation of The lady killersdied. She was 91 years old.
Hall died Tuesday, her family announced, calling her “a beloved actress, author, poet, educator and speaker whose contributions touched countless lives throughout her remarkable career. Her legacy of talent, dedication and compassion will continue to inspire generations to come.”
A Texas native and longtime Chicago resident, Hall spent 27 years as a schoolteacher and worked as an actress for more than two decades before first gaining national attention playing feisty Aunt T. in A family affair (1996), starring Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones as blood brothers.
She also served as a preacher in Daniel Petrie’s church. Square dance (1987), nurse at Ron Howard Backdraft (1991), a voodoo priestess in Clint Eastwood’s film Midnight in the garden of good and evil (1997) and the overbearing mother of Jamie Foxx’s character in Michael Mann’s film Collateral (2004).
Most recently, she made an impression as the wise-cracking, baking neighbor Meemaw in the Sundance television series. Hap and Leonard.
Hall is probably best known for playing Mama Joe, whose Sunday night dinners were a family tradition, in Food for the soul (1997) then on the Showtime series based on the film written and directed by George Tillman Jr.
“People stop me in Chicago, I’m Big Mama,” Hall, who won an NAACP Image Award for her work in the film, said in a 2008 interview. “In the Loop, they’ll see me across the street: ‘Hey, Big Mama, how are you? Can I have a hug?’ “Yeah, baby, come on.” I get a lot of hugs and everything.
Boyz II Men’s “A Song for Mama” was written and produced by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, specifically focused on his Soul Food persona.
Hall received a Special Jury Prize at Cannes for her portrayal of Marva Munson, the cantankerous, church-going Mississippi woman who rents a room from con artist Goldthwait Higginson Dorr III (Tom Hanks), in The lady killers (2004).
Irma Dolores Player was born June 3, 1935, in Beaumont, Texas, and raised in Chicago. His father was a saxophonist who played in big bands and his mother was a housekeeper.
She graduated from Texas College in Tyler, Texas, then moved to Dallas to become an English and foreign language teacher. During breaks she also worked as a journalist for The Dallas Expressa weekly newspaper focused on African Americans.
While a teacher, Hall also co-founded the Dallas Minority Repertory Theater, where she served as an administrator and performed. At age 36, while reciting a poem during a production, she was discovered and hired in Registera 1973 film for Embassy Pictures. Hall ventured into acting but continued to maintain her day job.
In 1978, she appeared as the Ewings’ housekeeper, Tilly, on CBS’ Dallas and over the next two years on TV movies featuring the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Eventually, she stopped teaching to work full-time as an actress.
She was later seen in other films, notably that of Toni Morrison. Beloved (1998), Patch Adams (1998), A life in decline (1999), Bad company (2002), that of Tyler Perry Meet the Browns (2008) and Jayne Mansfield’s car (2012).
In January 2004, Hall was involved in a serious car accident during a snowstorm in Chicago and required open heart surgery to repair a punctured aorta. The following year, she was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in Austin, presented by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Her contributions to theater and the performing arts are celebrated through the Irma P. Hall Black Theater Awards, also known as The Irmas, an annual awards ceremony founded in 2015 that celebrates artistic excellence in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.
Survivors include his daughter, Irma Hall Crayton.
“It’s surprising when people come and want my autograph,” she once said. “I always say, ‘For what?’ When I was doing something important like teaching at school, no one came to ask for my autograph.
Gn entert
