A Lesson Before Dying 24 years old

A young man's destiny becomes a teacher's journey.

A Lesson Before Dying

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.

Credits

A Lesson Before Dying Cast

Name Character
Don Cheadle He was 34, now 59 years old as Grant Wiggins
Cicely Tyson She was 74, now 99 years old as Tante Lou
Irma P. Hall She was 63, now 88 years old as Miss Emma
Mekhi Phifer He was 24, now 49 years old as Jefferson
Lisa Arrindell She was 30, now 55 years old as Vivian Baptiste
Dana Ivey She was 57, now 82 years old as Edna Guidry
Elijah Kelley He was 12, now 37 years old as Clarence
Brent Jennings He was 48, now 73 years old as Reverend Ambrose
Wynton Yates as Louis Washington
Stuart Culpepper as Henri Pichot
Von Coulter as Farrell Jarreau
Frank Hoyt Taylor He was 46, now 71 years old as Sheriff Guidry

A Lesson Before Dying Crew

Name Department
Ann Peacock as Teleplay. Writing
Ernest J. Gaines as Novel. He was 66 (86) years old when He died Writing
A Lesson Before Dying poster
A Lesson Before Dying (24 years)

A young man's destiny becomes a teacher's journey.

  • Release day: Saturday, May 22, 1999
  • Runtime: 101 minutes