Irma P. Hall, the acclaimed actress who became one of the most beloved mother figures in film history as Big Mama Joe in Soul Food, has died. She was 91.

Hall died Tuesday, November 10, surrounded by her loved ones, according to a statement authorized by her family. The Dallas resident was a longtime member and cherished Church Mother of Inspiring Body of Christ Church, led by senior pastor Rickie G. Rush.

For many fans, Hall will always be Big Mama Joe, the matriarch who held her family together with Sunday dinners in the 1997 classic Soul Food. The role earned her an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, and she later reprised it in the Soul Food television series.

The character was so cherished that Boyz II Men’s A Song for Mama, written and produced by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, was built around her. Decades later, it remains one of the most enduring Mother’s Day anthems of all time.

Over a career that spanned nearly five decades in film, television and theater, Hall became one of Hollywood’s most respected character actresses. Her credits include A Family Thing, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Beloved, Patch Adams, Collateral and Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.

Her performance opposite Tom Hanks in the Coen brothers’ The Ladykillers earned her the Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and she was also honored by the Chicago and Kansas City film critics associations for A Family Thing and inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame.

Born Irma Dolores Player on June 3, 1935, in Beaumont, Texas, Hall was raised in Chicago before returning to Texas to attend Texas College in Tyler. Before Hollywood ever came calling, she spent more than two decades teaching English and foreign languages in Dallas public schools. Her acting career began almost by chance, when actor and director Raymond St. Jacques spotted her talent at a poetry reading in Dallas. She made her film debut in 1973’s Book of Numbers, launching a remarkable second career.

Hall never lost her love for teaching or for the Dallas arts community. She helped establish the Dallas Minority Repertory Theatre, and her legacy lives on through the Irma P. Hall Black Theatre Awards, known as The Irmas, which celebrate theater excellence across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Texas College later awarded her an honorary doctorate in fine arts and education.

At Inspiring Body of Christ Church, she was known for reading to children at the church’s University of Dreams school and staying involved in its theater ministry. Her bond with Pastor Rush went back decades, to when she was his speech teacher.

“When I was just 14 years old, Mother Hall looked at me during one of our public speaking lessons and told me, ‘One day, you will be my pastor,’” Rush said. “Little did I know then how those words would come to pass or how much she would mean to me and our church family. Our beloved Church Mother, Irma P. Hall, has taken her final bow on the stage of life and stepped into eternity.”

Her only daughter, Irma Hall Crayton, said her mother’s impact reached far beyond the screen. “She started as a teacher in the classroom but ended up being a teacher to the world,” Crayton said. “My mom used to always say, ‘To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.’ And she was just that to many people.”

The family has asked for privacy and says details on funeral services, memorial arrangements and tributes will be announced at a later date.