Bernie Mac died Saturday in Chicago from complications due to pneumonia. The comedian had sarcoidosis, a lung disease, but was in remission. His publicist said that the condition was not related to the pneumonia.
started his comedy career at a church dinner when he was just 8-years-old. Growing up in Chicago's South Side comedy helped him escape poverty when at 20 he begun to perform in local comedy clubs.
In 1992 he started an active film career with the Damon Wayans movie "Mo' Money." He was also in "Ocean's Eleven", "Guess Who?", "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."
He won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for his television series "The Bernie Mac Show." The show ran from 2001 to 2006. In 2007 he told David Letterman during a guest appearance on the show that he was planning on retiring 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."
His 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," spoke of his poor childhood and how his parents raised him with a no-nonsense strictness. At the age of 16 Mac lost his mother to cancer. She told him before she died that he would surprise everyone when he grew up.
She was right.
He leaves behind wife Rhonda, daughter Je'Niece and granddaughter Jasmine.
Bernie Mac Dead At Age 50
Email
Print
Share
del.icio.us
facebook
newsvine
reddit
stumbleupon
technorati