Irma P. Hall, the veteran actor best known as Big Mama, the steadying matriarch of the 1997 film 'Soul Food,' died Tuesday in Dallas at age 91. Her family announced her death Wednesday; no cause was given.

According to CNN, Hall brought warmth and authority to matriarchal roles and only found major film fame at 60, when 'A Family Thing' cast her as Aunt T., the blind woman who counsels half brothers played by James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall.

Her daughter, Irma Hall Crayton, said in the family's statement: 'She started as a teacher in the classroom but ended up being a teacher to the world.'

'Soul Food' remains a touchstone for Black food culture: the family's Joseph table, presided over by Hall's Big Mama, is the emotional engine of George Tillman Jr.'s film, which the Los Angeles Times notes starred Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox and Nia Long as her three daughters.

Hall earned a Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for playing Marva Munson, the Bible-reading landlady opposite Tom Hanks in the Coen brothers' 2004 comedy 'The Ladykillers,' as CNN reports.

The Los Angeles Times adds that the same year, 1997, she played witchy healer Minerva opposite Kevin Spacey and John Cusack in Clint Eastwood's 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.'

Her credits ranged from 'Beloved' and 'Patch Adams' to 'Collateral' and Tyler Perry's 'Meet the Browns,' plus the voice of Great Aunt T. in the 2001 'Rugrats' Kwanzaa special.

Both outlets trace a remarkable late-blooming path.

Born Irma Dolores Player on June 3, 1935, in Beaumont, Texas, and raised in Chicago, Hall taught English and foreign languages in Dallas public schools for more than two decades before actor-director Raymond St. Jacques heard her recite poetry and cast her in his 1973 film 'Book of Numbers,' CNN reports.

The Los Angeles Times says she studied elders' physicality in nursing homes to portray older women truthfully. 'I guess you really never know where you are,' she told the Associated Press in 1996.

Hall's influence extended beyond her own performances. She helped establish the Dallas Minority Repertory Theatre and remained involved in developing young artists, according to CNN.

The Los Angeles Times reports that she co-founded that Dallas theatre, served as a longtime member and Church Mother at Inspiring Body of Christ Church, read to children at its school, and stayed active in its theater ministry.

'I want to tell their stories so profoundly that no one will ever forget these characters,' she told the Dallas Morning News in 2017. 'I don't care if they don't know who Irma P. Hall is.'

The Los Angeles Times reports that Hall's survivors include her daughter and that a celebration of life will be announced at a later date.

Recalling her 2004 recovery from a car crash, Hall told the Associated Press that Tom Hanks and the Coen brothers had signed her pillow while she recuperated: 'Whenever I miss them, I hug it.'