Bernie Mac: 1957-2008

[Goldeneye]

E! Online
Today 7:36 AM PDT by Joal Ryan
Bernie Mac wanted to be like Bill Cosby: He wanted to make his mother laugh.

The actor-comedian, who told jokes on train platforms, and plugged away for decades before coming into the spotlight on his own Fox sitcom, the Ocean's Eleven movies, and more, died today, one week it was learned he'd been hospitalized with pneumonia.

He was 50.

A spokesman for the Cook County Medical Examiner's office confirmed to E! News that Mac had been a patient at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital for "over a week," and that he died this morning of "natural causes."

Yesterday, Mac's publicist, Danica Smith, responding to rumor that the star had fallen critically ill, said Mac was in stable condition, and was "responding well to treatment."

Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that can affect any body organ, per the Mayo Clinic's Website, but that Mac revealed in 2005 had taken root in his lungs. According Smith, the pneumonia that struck down the star was unrelated to the disease, which had been said to be in remission.

Prior to falling ill, Mac had been typically booked—shooting a new proposed Fox comedy series, Starting Under, finishing off a new big-screen comedy with Samuel L. Jackson, Soul Men, due out in November, and even offering himself as vice-presidential material to Barack Obama.

Mac made the overture to Obama at a fundraiser last month for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. As reported by the Chicago Tribune, Mac admitted to the audience that he wasn't likely to get the V.P. job because, as he put it, "I cuss."

While Mac did cuss, his comedy was, befitting a man married for more than 30 years, rooted in family.

From 2001-2006, Mac played the exasperated, but thoroughly no-nonsense father figure on The Bernie Mac Show. Mac earned two Emmy acting nominations for playing a version of himself, or maybe more accurately, of his stand-up act. The misadventures of a comedian charged with taking care of his sister's young children was not unfamiliar to fans of the concert film The Original Kings of Comedy, which saw Mac riff on the same topic.

In the movies, Mac wasn't quite as domestic, but, with the right material, he could be just as funny.

Mac was one of George Clooney's invaluable heist men in 2001's Ocean's Eleven, and its two followups, Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. He was the den mother to Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in the 2003 Charlie's Angels sequel, Full Throttle, taking over Bosley duties from Bill Murray. And he was on Billy Bob Thornton's case in Bad Santa.

In 2004, he was the main man, at last, in the baseball comedy, Mr. 3000.

A Chigao native born in 1957 as Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, a surname that naturally lent itself to the nickname "Mac," the future star was a school-age kid in Chicago when he saw his crying mother give in to laughter while watching Bill Cosby on The Ed Sullivan Show.

"That's what I want to be, Mama. A comedian," Mac wrote in his 2003 autobiography, Maybe You Never Cry Again. "Make you laugh like that, maybe you never cry again."

Mac's mother never lived to see her son make good on his promise, at least professionally—she died of cancer while he was in high school. Mac's career in comedy started not long after. In 1977, while giving community college a go, the 19-year-old Mac started telling jokes on Chicago's El train platforms. Sometimes, a fellow commuter would slip him a bill. He was on his way.

Starting with 1992's Mo' Money, Mac began getting bit parts in movies. A 1995 HBO special, Midnight Mac, validated his comedy credentials, while a supporting role in 1999's Life, the prison comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, raised his profile.

Mac's game-changing break came in 2000, with the release of the Spike Lee-directed The Original Kings of Comedy. The film documented a show featuring Mac, Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer, veteran comics all who had long toured as the "Kings of Comedy." The movie enjoyed an unexpectedly strong opening weekend, and went onto become the second-biggest grossing stand-up comedy film, after Eddie Murphy Raw.

Suddenly, Mac, the only one of the four comics then without a prime-time vehicle, was a star.

"All of that was humble beginnings," Mac said in the Chicago Tribune in 2002. "And I say that with motivation because I remember them without any shame, without any sorrow, without any pity. That's what made me."

Once kicked into high gear, Mac's career never slowed. While his new Fox series wasn't picked up for the fall, Mac had lots more going on, including voice-over work as Ben Stiller's lion father in Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa, due out in November.

"I always want to top myself. I want to get good," Mac told Time magazine in 2003. "You just don't know how much I want to get good. I want the audience to leave the theater and say, 'He did good.'"

[FormerBondFan]

I can't believe this. He died so young.

[Dr. No]

Ah, man
This is a shock to the system.
Ive been thinking about him recently because of Freddie Mac scandal.

His family will be feeling the loss but my words can never be enough to express how they feel the best I can do is say how much I and my family enjoyed his work and how much we will miss him.
He does us all a final service by reminding us to savor time with those we love.

May he rest in peace he dies far to young.

[Goldeneye]

CHICAGO (AP) - Comedian Bernie Mac's daughter says her family had expected him to fully recover from the bout of pneumonia that put him in a hospital three weeks ago.

However, Je'niece Childress says that as time passed she and her mother braced for the possibility that he could die.

Mac died Saturday at age 50 from what his publicist said were complications from pneumonia.

Childress said Mac entered Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago in the middle of July.

She says funeral arrangements are pending. Publicist Danica Smith has said a public memorial would be held next weekend in Chicago.

[FormerBondFan]

Another big star dies at an early age.

[Kristatos]

They're dropping like flies. First Bernie Mac, then Isaac Hayes, now I read that Paul Newman only has weeks to live.

[FormerBondFan]

They're dropping like flies. First Bernie Mac, then Isaac Hayes, now I read that Paul Newman only has weeks to live.

I hope Paul Newman is alright.

[Kristatos]

They're dropping like flies. First Bernie Mac, then Isaac Hayes, now I read that Paul Newman only has weeks to live.

I hope Paul Newman is alright.

He has finished his chemotherapy and doctors say there is nothing more they can do for him. He has gone home to die. Very sad.

Here's a picture of him in his prime, as I'm sure he'd like to be remembered:

[Goldeneye]

They're dropping like flies. First Bernie Mac, then Isaac Hayes, now I read that Paul Newman only has weeks to live.

I hope Paul Newman is alright.

He has finished his chemotherapy and doctors say there is nothing more they can do for him. He has gone home to die. Very sad.

Here's a picture of him in his prime, as I'm sure he'd like to be remembered:

For those who have not heard about Newman and Hayes

PAUL NEWMAN - NEWMAN GIVEN WEEKS TO LIVE?
contactmusic.com
Legendary actor PAUL NEWMAN has reportedly been given only weeks to live after allegedly completing chemotherapy treatment at a New York hospital.
The Oscar-winning actor, 83, was pictured being wheeled out of the Weill Cornell Medical Centre - which specialises in cancer treatment - looking thin and frail last week (31Jul08).
Rumours of his declining health and alleged lung cancer diagnosis surfaced earlier this year (08), following his withdrawal as director from a production of Of Mice and Men in his native Connecticut.
At the time of the reports, Newman's spokesman denied the actor had cancer.
But according to new claims, the star has spent the last few weeks arranging his business and personal affairs in preparation for his departure from the facility.
A source tells Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, "The sudden move angered his children. It's especially hard for them to come to grips with what's going on. The word they've been given is that he has only a few weeks to live."
Newman is best known for his roles in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and 1967's Cool Hand Luke.
He has been nominated for 10 Oscars in his 50-year-long career, winning best actor for his role in The Color of Money in 1986.
Just last year (07), he announced his retirement, saying: "You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So I think that's pretty much a closed book for me."
Newman and his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, share three daughters. He is also father to two daughters from his first marriage to Jackie Witte.
A spokesperson for the actor says Newman is "doing nicely", but has neither confirmed nor denied that he has cancer.

Soul legend Isaac Hayes dies
(CNN) -- Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film "Shaft," has died, sheriff's officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday.

Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.

Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m., the sheriff's department said.

No foul play is suspected, the agency said in a written statement.

Hayes was a longtime songwriter and arranger for Stax Records in Memphis, playing in the studio's backup band and crafting tunes for artists such as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave in the 1960s.

He released his first solo album in 1967, and his 1969 follow-up, "Hot Buttered Soul," became a platinum hit.

In 1971, the theme from "Shaft" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and won an Academy Award for best original theme song. The song and the movie score also won Grammy awards for best original score and movie theme.

Hayes won a third Grammy for pop instrumental performance with the title track to his 1972 "Black Moses" album.

From the late 1990s through 2006, Hayes provided the voice of "Chef" for Comedy Central's raunchy animated series "South Park," as well as numerous songs.

The role introduced him to a new generation of fans, but he left after the show lampooned his own religion, the Church of Scientology.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. In a CNN interview at the time, Hayes credited his success to "adjusting and constantly evolving, expanding and trying to stay as young as I can."

The new generation of popular musicians, he said, "could use a little more substance like we had in the day."

"They're standing on our shoulders. Some of them don't realize [it] because they sample me so much," he said.

Hayes credited his role on "South Park" with expanding his fan base, and said that he had almost passed on the job.

"I started to walk out. I thought it was a Disney thing. I [had] never heard of this thing," he said. But his agent persuaded him to tape some episodes.

"Toward the opening I started having trepidations -- 'Oh my god, what have I done? I've ruined my career.' But when it aired, the ratings went through the roof," he said.

A 1992 visit to the royal family in Ghana was a life-changing experience for Hayes, he said.

"I went back on speaking engagements and encouraged African-Americans to go to Africa [to] interact socially, culturally and/or economically," he said.

[carl stromberg]

I loved Bernie's sitcom. I remember him saying he was a "Professor of Whupassology".

RIP.

[katied]

Both Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes died too young.