Oh man, we were really really pulling for Bernie Mac to recover from that bout of pneumonia. So much so that, in fact, we hadn't reported on it in the hopes that he'd just be out of the hospital soon and that would be that. But no; Mac's publicists have confirmed that the comedian and actor died early this morning. Mac had suffered for years from sarcoidosis, a chronic inflammation of the lungs, and this seems to have been a factor in Mac's developing the pneumonia, from which he had been reportedly expected to make a full recovery.
Bernie Mac -- born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough -- was a working comedian for 30 years, and before his breakthrough appearance in The Original Kings of Comedy, landing a well-received (and, our wife would note, occasionally quite touching) sitcom on FOX, and more than holding his own with huge movie stars in the Ocean's movies, he had honed his craft in clubs and on shows like Def Comedy Jam, where the above clip comes from. We had never seen this performance before, but even in our sadness, we're pretty sure that Mac's opening line -- "I ain't scared of you motherfuckers!" -- is pretty much the best onstage hello in history, and with its blending of profanity, defiance, and a subtle undercurrent of insecurity, captures perfectly everything we loved about the man. Godspeed.
Bernie Mac was 50 years old, and in recent years had been hinting at retiring from active performing in lieu of producing. He is survived by his wife, Rhonda McCullough, his daughter, Je'Niece, and his granddaughter, Janelle.
