The Undeniable Royalty of Angela Bassett

“What do black women want? And what does Hollywood want black women to be?” Hilton Als wrote in The New Yorker, in 1996, contemplating the singular career of Angela Bassett. By then, Bassett had exploded into movie stardom with roles in John Singleton’s “Boyz n the Hood” and Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” and then had really blown up playing Tina Turner, in “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” for which she was nominated for Best Actress at the 1994 Academy Awards. Bassett lost, to Holly Hunter (“The Piano”), but she went on to star in “Waiting to Exhale” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” both groundbreaking films that chronicled the love lives and friendships of middle-aged Black women. It was a mini-genre that seemed to revolve around Bassett, whose innate strength, diamond-sharp beauty, and depth of feeling made her a totem of empowered Black womanhood in the nineties.