By F.N. D'ALESSIO, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Bernie Mac, the actor
and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom
"The Bernie Mac Show," died Saturday
at age 50.
Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed
away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago
area hospital," his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement
from Los Angeles.
She said no other details were available and asked that his
family's privacy be respected.
The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an
inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the
body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in
2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which
his publicist said was not related to the disease.
Recently, Mac's brand of comedy caught him flack when he was
heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for
Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.
Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about
menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional
crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama's
campaign.
But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was
always a performer.
"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put
on a good show."
Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished
upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began
doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small
role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans
comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996,
he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."
He was one of "The Original
Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that
brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider
audience.
Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad
Pitt and George Clooney.
His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005's
"Guess Who" topped the box office. It was a
comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and
Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming
to Dinner?" — with Mac as the black dad who's shocked that
his daughter is marrying a white man.
Mac also had starring roles in "Bad
Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and
"Transformers."
In the late 1990s, he had a recurring role in "Moesha," the UPN
network comedy starring pop star Brandy.
The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox
television series "The Bernie Mac Show,"
which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001
to 2006.
The series about a man's adventures raising his sister's three
children, won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the
time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending "race and
class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion — and
cool."
The show garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.
"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in a 2001
Associated Press interview. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T
do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna
be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?'"
He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album
in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of
Comedy" co-stars, Steve Harvey,
D.L.
Hughley and Cedric The
Entertainer.
In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS'
"Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.
"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to
enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of
things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went
into clubs in 1977."
Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in
Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side,
living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the
deacon of a Baptist church.
In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about
having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict,
no-nonsense upbringing.
"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac told
the AP in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when
there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."
Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac
said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise
everyone when he grew up.
"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long
before I believed."
___
Associated Press writer Carla Johnson also contributed to this
report.
