BERNIE MAC 1958-2008

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"OH, LORD!"

WHO YOU WITH, AMERICA?

YOUTUBE: The Bernie Mac Show: "Pay Your Respects"


Chicago Comedian, Actor, Writer, Producer Dead At Forty-Nine

Showman extraordinaire, High King of the "Original Kings Of Comedy," mainstream-successful street-kid from the South Side of Chicago, and, God help him, White Sox fan, the great Bernard Jeffery "Bernie Mac" McCullough has left the building.

Bernie Mac's successful situation comedy won three Emmy's, two Golden Globes, a Peabody, four NAACP Image Awards, and the Humanitas Prize. "The Bernie Mac Show" managed to transcend the worked-out genres of ethnic and family sit-coms and delivered genuine and funny episodes every week for six years on the FOX Network. In other words, the show was funny even to a crusty old white boy like me. Bernie Mac's stand-up routines were world-class also, and should be seen, frequently.

Bernie Mac worked in films with superstars Al Pacino, George Clooney and Brad Pitt; actresses Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julia Roberts; comedians and comic actors Damon Wayans, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Chris Tucker, Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedrick the Entertainer, Don Cheadle; and renowned directors Ted Demme, Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh.

We'll save the moralizing for the pro's. We lost a good man yesterday, too soon, too soon, and he will be missed.



VARIETY
"Comedian Bernie Mac dies at 50"

' Bernie Mac, who won a Peabody for his Fox comedy and starred in hit features such as “Ocean’s Eleven,” died Saturday morning from complications due to pneumonia. Mac was 50. The actor and comedian died in a Chicago hospital, where he’d been fighting pneumonia since early last week. His publicist, Danica Smith, said no other details were available and asked that his family be given privacy. Smith had earlier told reporters that he had improved and was expected to make a full recovery. Mac, whose death shocked friends and fans alike, had been plotting a return to primetime in the last months of his life. “I want to have fun. Life ain’t no dress rehearsal. I want to have fun. I’m a comedian; I ain’t no politician. So everything I do is with humor, with love. I ain’t trying to -- I ain’t running for office. I ain’t running for nothing. Only thing I want to do is entertain the people, I want them to be proud when they leave and they can recite something that I said or tell a joke that I told, I’ve done my job,” he said in that interview. '

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"Bernie Mac fans mourn death"

' Fans from Chicago to California mourned the passing of Bernie Mac on Saturday, remembering him as a successful comedian and role model. "He's from Chicago and he showed he can make it if you push yourself," said Devon Price, 17, a student at Eisenhower High School, who called Mac a role model for young African-Americans. Mac, 50, died early Saturday morning after being hospitalized with pneumonia for at least a week at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The South Side native rose from edgy stand-up comic to network TV star. '

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
"Bernie Mac's riff too crass for Obama"

' Mac cussed plenty through the act and said that would disqualify him from being vice-president. "Having a black first lady is different: You're still going have to do the dishes and the laundry and all that . . . you got to pick up the kids," Mac said. "'You didn't pick up the kids?' 'I just came from Korea, talking about nuclear weapons.' 'You were on Air Force One and you couldn't stop to pick up the kids?'" Mac said he is a Democrat "born and raised" but added that, "I'm a Republican at tax time." He mimicked a mock warning from an imagined staffer: "Don't kill the message." Mac ended his irreverent riff with a joke involving the women in the families and living with two "hos." A heckler started protesting, asking for Mac to step down to let Obama come on. When Obama did, the presidential hopeful thanked, among others, "my great friend, one of the kings of comedy, Bernie Mac." Obama ended his speech by saying, "We can't afford to be divided by religion, or by region or class. Or by gender." Then, pausing for effect, he added: "That means, by the way, Bernie, you got to clean up your act. This is a family affair. . . . I'm just messing with you, man." '

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