Irma P. Hall, the actress who played Mama Joe in Soul Food and Marva Munson in the Coen brothers’ The Ladykillers, has died at 91. Source Her family announced her death November 11, and Deadline reported that she died November 10 in Dallas. SourceSource
In a statement quoted by TV Insider, her family said she was surrounded by loved ones. No cause of death was disclosed. Source
In George Tillman Jr.’s Soul Food (1997), Hall played the matriarch whose Sunday dinners brought her family together. She won the 1998 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for the film and later reprised Mama Joe on Showtime’s television adaptation. SourceSource
In a 2008 interview quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, Hall described being recognized as Big Mama in Chicago: “Down in the Loop, they’ll see me across the street: ‘Hey, Big Mama, how you doing? Can I have a hug?’ ‘Yeah, baby, come on.’ I get lots of hugs and things.” Source
In The Ladykillers (2004), Hall played a churchgoing Mississippi woman who rents a room to a crook played by Tom Hanks. Her performance earned a special jury award at Cannes that year. SourceSource
Born June 3, 1935, in Beaumont, Texas, and raised in Chicago, she graduated from Texas College in Tyler and became an English and foreign-language teacher. She spent 27 years teaching, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Source
Actor and director Raymond St. Jacques discovered her during a poetry reading in Dallas, leading to her film debut in Book of Numbers (1973). Hall continued teaching while pursuing acting, eventually turning to it full time in 1984, according to Variety. Her performance as Aunt T. in A Family Thing (1996), alongside Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones, later brought her national attention. SourceSourceSource
Her other roles included the mother of Jamie Foxx’s character in Collateral and the neighbor Meemaw in Hap and Leonard. She also helped establish the Dallas Minority Repertory Theatre. SourceSource
“She started as a teacher in the classroom but ended up being a teacher to the world,” her daughter, Irma Hall Crayton, said in a tribute reported by Deadline. Source
In the statement published November 11, Hall’s family requested privacy and said details about funeral services, memorial arrangements and special tributes would be announced later. Source
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