Although “real,” raw and raunchy, comedian-actor Bernie Mac won laughs, fans and respect from the blackest ghetto to all-white suburban subdivisions. Those closest to him spotlight familial and human values in the wake of his death.
“That was his whole thing,” said Cedric The Entertainer, his friend and Kings of Comedy co-star.
“He loved his wife and daughter and took care of his sister’s kids,” Cedric The Entertainer said of the late comedian’s familial life, which inspired his self-titled sitcom, The Bernie Mac Show.
“He cared about the people he loved most and protected them,” Cedric The Entertainer said.
“After rehearsals, Bernie Mac may have a cocktail, but right after that he would leave and go to his family,” Cedric The Entertainer said.
Bernie’s untimely death last Saturday, reportedly of complications due to pneumonia, took his family by surprise though had recently been hospitalized.
“I knew he was sick,” Cedric The Entertainer said, “but I was told by his family that he was all right, and they expected him to come home, so I expected the same. So it caught me off guard.”
Bernie Mac had reportedly lived with sarcoidosis for 25 years, with the disease going into remission in 2005. Though his publicist Danica Smith disconnected sarcoidosis from his death, some doctors figured in the rare lung disease.
“I believe that sarcoidosis played a major role in his death,” said Hollywood doctor Marc Siegel on Fox 2’s MJ Morning Show.
“It scars the lungs and populates them with inflammation and keeps them from being their own vacuum and, of course, pneumonia puts fluid on the lungs,” the doctor explained.
In any case, Bernie Mac’s death puts a much-needed spotlight on the mysterious lung disease that attacks skins and organs, including the eyes, and predominately affects African Americans.
Bernie caught double pneumonia in 2004 and once showed up for a TV interview in a wheelchair with oxygen tubes in his nostrils.
Rumors of HIV and AIDS ran rampant then, and now, in the wake of the funnyman’s untimely death.
His publicist reportedly said no other details were available regarding his death and asked that his family’s privacy be respected.
Private funeral services will be held Saturday in his hometown Chicago, where he was born Bernard Jeffrey McCollough on Oct. 5, 1957. He was 50 years old when he passed.
Up from the South Side
Bernie Mac grew up poor on the south side of Chicago and was reared by his mother and grandparents. His mother died of cancer when he was just 16 years old.
The funnyman wrote about his life in a memoir, Maybe You Never Go Home Again.
“I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy,” he told the Associated Press in 2001.
“I decided to try to make others laugh when there wasn’t a lot things to laugh at,” Bernie Mac continued.
Cedric The Entertainer remembers Bernie Mac, memorial service in chicago on Saturday
By Bill Beene Of the St. Louis American
He really made people laugh.
“He was the reason I do comedy,” said St. Louis comic G-Thang, calling Bernie Mac the most imitated comedian.
“When I first started doing comedy, I would imitate him and that would be the only laugh I got,” said G-Thang, who has a role in the upcoming comedy, Disaster Movie.
St. Louis native comedienne-actor Jennifer Lewis said, “Bernie’s style of comedy was bold, courageous and revolutionary – I never knew anyone who loved to be funny as much as Bernie. He will most definitely be missed.”
Bernie was known for his excessive, but hilarious use of the “MF” and his confrontational line, “I ain’t scared of you MFs.”
Still, he was able to make it into the living rooms of both blacks and whites on his sitcom, where he would start his questions or remarks to viewers by saying, “America…”
Another comedienne-actor with St. Louis roots, Niecy Nash, who played Bernie Mac’s little sister on The Bernie Mac Show and played opposite of him in Guess Who, called him a friend and mentor.
“His passing is a major loss in the acting and comedy communities,” Nash said.
Cedric The Entertainer called Bernie Mac a great comedian, truthful, and armed with an array of material.
“He gave it to you raw, and he took chances,” Cedric The Entertainer said.
“Like that little thing with Barack Obama – to us comedians, that was just Bernie being Bernie,” Cedric The Entertainer said of the late comedian’s raunchy-as-usual performance at an Obama function.
“It didn’t matter where he was or how he was around – he stayed true to his self,” Cedric the Entertainer said.
Ironically, Bernie Mac had recently filmed the movie Soul Men, which
centers around the death of friend who was part of a trio. Bernie co-starred in the movie with Samuel L. Jackson and Isaac Hayes, who died Sunday.
Cedric The Entertainer said having one of the Kings of Comedy gone is
terrible.
“It was a legendary experience and a classic that hasn’t been duplicated,” Ced said of tour and movie’s audience and box office impact, the highest-grossing of its kind.
“To know we shared that and we were always attached is like one of the
Temptations is gone,” Cedric The Entertainer said.
Cedric The Entertainer’s friend, manager and business partner Eric Rhone deemed Bernie Mac’s death a cause to make once-good relationships gone-bad good again.
“People and groups that have fallen out should use this as a wakeup
call to reach out to one another,” Rhone said.
“You don’t want to be in a situation where you try to apologize once a person is gone.”
There will be a Memorial Service for Bernie Mac this Saturday starting at noon at the The House of Hope 752 E. 114TH St. (just off the 115th St. Exit of the Bishop Ford Freeway (Interstate 94)) Chicago, IL. 60628.
