Bernie Mac

Bernard Jeffrey McCullough was born on October 5, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois.[2] Mac was the second child of Mary McCullough and Jeffrey Harrison.[3] Mac was raised by his single mother (who died of cancer when he was sixteen years old) and his grandparents on the city's west side.[4]

Mac began his high school career at Chicago Vocational High School. During 1973, Mac moved to Tampa, Florida, to attend Jesuit High School following the death of his mother during his sophomore year.[5] Shortly afterward, Mac's older brother and his estranged father both died. Mac later returned to Chicago and graduated from Chicago Vocational in 1975.[6]

Mac married his high school sweetheart Rhonda Gore on September 17, 1977, and together they had a daughter, Ja'Niece Childress (née McCullough), born in 1978. During his 20s and through his early 30s, Mac worked in a variety of jobs, including janitor, coach, professional mover, cook, bus driver, Sears delivery man, furniture mover, and UPS agent, while doing comedy on the weekends at clubs and parties.[5]

Bernie Mac's influences were from The Three Stooges and listening to stand-up comedians Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. Mac started as a stand-up comedian in Chicago's Cotton Club. After he won the Miller Lite Comedy Search at the age of 32, his popularity as a comedian began to grow. A performance on HBO's Def Comedy Jam thrust him into the spotlight; after Martin Lawrence was unable to calm an increasingly hostile crowd, Mac went onstage and famously said, "I ain't scared o' you mothafuckas," telling the audience that he "didn't come here for no foolishness."

Mac opened for Dionne Warwick, Redd Foxx and Natalie Cole. He played a small role in 1994's House Party 3 as Uncle Vester. He also had a short-lived talk show on HBO titled Midnight Mac. Later, Mac also acted in minor roles, Mac played Mr. Johnson the no-nonsense owner of a grille and diner in the movie B.A.P.S., and he got his big break as "Pastor Clever" in Ice Cube's 1995 film Friday. Following that role, Mac was selectively chosen to play the title role, The Wiz in the 1995 Apollo Revival of The Wiz.

Mac had his first starring role as "Dollar Bill", a silly, slick-talking club owner in The Players Club. Mac was able to break from the traditional "black comedy" genre, having roles in the 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven and becoming the new Bosley for the Charlie's Angels sequel, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. In 2003 he performed in a supporting role as the villain "Gin Slagel, The Store Dick" in Bad Santa. He also starred in Guess Who? (a comedic remake of the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), Head of State, and made an appearance in the 2007 film Transformers as the car salesman "Bobby Bolivia".

In his later years, Mac hosted the reality television talent show Last Comic Standing. He also served as the voice of Zuba, Alex the Lion's long-lost father in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. He co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson in the 2008 musical comedy Soul Men as "Floyd Henderson". These two movies were released months after his death. His final film role was as Jimmy Lunchbox in the 2009 Disney film Old Dogs which was released a year after his death. He starred alongside John Travolta and Robin Williams in that film.

Bernie Mac at the Transformers premiere in June 2007

In 2001 the Fox network gave Mac his own television sitcom called The Bernie Mac Show portraying a fictional version of himself. In the show, he suddenly becomes custodian of his sister's three children after she enters rehab. Mac broke the fourth wall to tell his thoughts to the audience.

The show contained many parodies of events in Bernie's actual life. Bernie, who grew up on Chicago's South Side, was a fan of the Chicago White Sox, and would often sneak a reference to his favorite team in his episodes, including enlisting then-White Sox pitcher Jon Garland to make a guest cameo appearance. His "fourth wall" technique in the sitcom's 2005 season included wearing a White Sox jacket and cap, and congratulated his hometown Chicago White Sox and their staff members, on their recent World Series championship.

The show was not renewed after the 2005–2006 season. The series finale aired on April 14, 2006. However, the finale left a conclusion for the series, and no ending to the storyline of Bernie and Wanda trying to adopt a baby which had been abandoned a few episodes earlier. Among other awards, the show won an Emmy[7] for "Outstanding Writing", the Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, and the Humanitas Prize for television writing that promotes human dignity.[8] His character on The Bernie Mac Show was ranked No. 47 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time".[9]

In 2004 Bernie Mac starred as a retired baseball player in the film Mr. 3000. In the 2003 National League Championship Series, Mac sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley Field with the Chicago Cubs leading the Florida Marlins in the series 3 games to 2 and in Game 6 by a 2–0 score at the time (it would soon be 3–0 in the bottom of the 7th). Instead of saying "root, root, root for the Cubbies" Mac said, "root, root, root for the champs!, champs!" The Cubs lost the game following the Steve Bartman incident and the series, with some fans claiming that Mac helped jinx the Cubs. Mac later admitted that he had hated the North Side's Cubs his whole life, being a die-hard fan of the South Side's White Sox, and was seen during the White Sox' 2005 World Series victory at U.S. Cellular Field.

Mac was number 72 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time. On March 19, 2007, Mac told David Letterman on the CBS Late Show that he would retire from his 30-year career after he finished shooting the comedy film, The Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth, So Help Me Mac. "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 and was on the road 47 weeks out of the year."[10]

The first series of health problems occurred in the summer of 2004, when Mac was filming both Ocean's Twelve and Guess Who while also promoting Mr. 3000. He was set to film the remainder of Season 4 of The Bernie Mac Show in October of that year, but due to contracting pneumonia in both lungs and suffering from exhaustion, Fox halted production for four weeks so Mac could recover. His sarcoidosis went into remission in 2005.

In the final four years of his life, Mac publicly disclosed that he had suffered from sarcoidosis, a disease of unknown origin that causes inflammation in tissue. Sarcoidosis frequently attacked his lungs.[11] On August 1, 2008, Mac was admitted to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in his hometown of Chicago.[12] After a week of unsuccessful medical treatment, Mac went into cardiac arrest and subsequently died during the early morning hours on August 9, from complications of pneumonia at the age of 50.

Mac's public funeral was held a week after his death at the House of Hope Church with nearly 7,000 people in attendance.[13] Notable mourners at Mac's funeral were Chris Rock, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Samuel L. Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, Don Cheadle, the cast members from The Bernie Mac Show, and his Kings of Comedy fellows D. L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Steve Harvey.

During Steve Harvey's television show which aired November 14, 2016, Harvey read a proclamation from Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel proclaiming November 14 as "Bernie Mac Day".[14] Steve Harvey's guests included Bernie's wife Rhonda, their daughter Je'Niece, granddaughter Jasmine, and Bernie's The Original Kings of Comedy co-stars D. L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Guy Torry (who was the original host at the beginning of the tour). Mike Epps, appearing via satellite, along with the principal of Bernie and Rhonda's alma mater Chicago Vocational High School (CVS), revealed and unveiled the renaming of CVS Auditorium to the "Bernie Mac Auditorium".[15]

On February 14, 2017, Rolling Stone named Bernie Mac #41 of the 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time.[16]

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• American comedian Bernie Mac has pneumonia
• American actor and comedian Bernie Mac dies at age 50

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• Bernie Mac Foundation