BERNIE MACBernie Mac, who died in hospital on 9 August, 2008, after a bout of pneumonia, was an award-winning comedian and comic actor. He was just 50.
He was best known for his long-running sitcom The Bernie Mac Show which twisted the conventions of a traditional American family comedy, with the star addressing the audience directly with snippets of frank stand-up style material.
The success of the show led to film work, with roles in Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequels as well as Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Bad Santa (2003) and Transformers (2007).
He had just completed filming of Soul Men which also starred Isaac Hayes who in a tragic coincidence was found dead the following day at his home in Memphis.
At the time of his death, animators were also putting the finishing touches to Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, in which he voiced the character of Zuma the lion.
Bernie Mac was one of the stars of Def Comedy Jam during the 1990s and one of the four black comics featured in Spike Lee’s The Original Kings of Comedy (2000).
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Stella Foster said of reporting his death: “It brought tears to my eyes because Bernie Mac has always been my all-time favourite entertainer and comedian. It pains me to have to report that.”
Bernie Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on 5 October, 1957, in Chicago. He had a difficult upbringing, being raised solely by his mother who died when he was 16 – he later claimed his mother and grandmother had beaten him.
Despite this hardship, he showed potential as an entertainer while growing up, putting on shows for the neighbourhood kids. While working in various menial jobs during his 20s he began to perform stand-up at a local club. His break eventually came at 32 when he won a national comedy competition.
His debut on Def Comedy Jam made him an overnight star and several notable gigs followed. The Bernie Mac Show was based on one of his stand-up routines in which he discussed having to take care of his sister’s three cocky children while she was in rehab. Naturally, on television Mac had to tone down the strong language for which his live comedy was known, but his character in the programme shared his on-stage temper – he would alternate between threatening the recalcitrant youngsters with violence and reluctantly playing the surrogate father the kids needed.
The Bernie Mac Show ran from 2001 to 2006 when it was controversially axed by Fox. By then, however, it had won an Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Writing’, the Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, the Humanitas Prize for television writing that promotes human dignity, and several other prestigious accolades.
Mac had been appearing in films since the early1990s but primarily in poorly-received black comedies like Booty Call and How to Be a Player (both 1997). The success of his television show and his part on the 2000 Kings of Comedy tour helped him break into the mainstream. His first starring role came in the baseball comedy Mr 3000 (2004).
At the time of his death he was planning to take a step back from his work, though he had recently been working on films and performing stand-up in support of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Reports of his admittance to hospital with pneumonia in the week before his death were misleading, with some news agencies declaring that he would soon be back to full health just hours before news of his death broke. He was survived by his wife of three decades, Rhonda, their daughter, Je’Niece, and granddaughter Jasmine.
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