Irma P. Hall, 'Soul Food' and 'The Ladykillers' actor who found fame at 60, dies at 91

Irma P. Hall, the veteran actor 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.

Her family announced her death Wednesday. No cause was given.

Hall was best known to many viewers as Big Mama, the family’s steadying 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 a Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for her performance as Marva Munson, a Bible-reading landlady opposite Tom Hanks in the Coen brothers’ 2004 comedy “The Ladykillers.” Hall also appeared in “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” brought her a major film role. She played Aunt T., a blind woman whose counsel helps guide two half brothers, played by James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall. The part drew attention to an actor who had spent years developing her craft onstage and in smaller screen roles.

“I was just concentrating on developing this craft,” Hall said in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press. “I guess you really never know where you are, you probably think you are on a lower rung than you really are.”

Hall had not set out to become an actor. Born Irma Dolores Player on June 3, 1935, in Beaumont, Texas, she was raised in Chicago and later returned to Texas for college. She taught English and foreign languages in Dallas public schools for more than two decades.

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 as she took acting roles, then made performance her full-time work in the 1980s. She also helped establish the Dallas Minority Repertory Theatre and remained involved in developing young artists.

Hall’s career included theater, television and film. Her 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 crash, including open-heart surgery, a broken arm and a crushed ankle, when she traveled from a Chicago convalescent center to attend a private screening of “The Ladykillers.”

“I loved the whole thing,” she told The Associated Press. “You never really know until you see it on the screen.”

Hall said she had heard from Hanks and the Coen brothers while recuperating. They had signed her pillow, she said. “Whenever I miss them, I hug it.”

In Dallas, Hall was also a longtime member and Church Mother at Inspiring Body of Christ Church. Her family remembered her as a woman of faith who read to children at the church’s school and stayed active in its theater ministry.

“She started as a teacher in the classroom but ended up being a teacher to the world,” her daughter, Irma Hall Crayton, said in the family’s announcement.