Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 62

Geoffrey Owens not out of work anymore

Just when most of us get sick and tired of social media and how heartbreaking it can be, something heartwarming like this happens. I can’t express to you how full my heart is seeing how social media has rallied behind and supports Geoffrey Owens. Geoffrey is a good dude. It’s actually a distinguishing quality of his. So it’s no wonder that he is willing to do whatever he needs to do legally to take care of his family. What people don’t know about Geoffrey is that not only did he graduate cum laude from Yale, but he is an accomplished theater actor (pre and post Cosby). His intimate knowledge of Shakespeare as an actor and director puts many of us to shame. And in a way we should thank Fox News and the miserable fucks for their attempt to job shame him. With the love and support he’s getting from everybody, he’s about to get more work. Trader Joe’s is not a career change, you dumbfucks out there, it’s a placeholder gig that allows flexibility to go on auditions and then to take time off to go work when booking said auditions. An actor’s life is a series of ups and downs. As my mama used to tell me when I was a teenager, if you’re in this business long enough, you will have dry spells. Watch this be the kickstart this dry spell needed! Salute and MAD respect to bro

Macy Gray

Macy Gray (born Natalie Renée McIntyre; September 6, 1967) is an American R&B, jazz and soul singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actress, known for her distinctive raspy voice, and a singing style heavily influenced by Billie Holiday.

Gray has released six studio albums, and received five Grammy Award nominations, winning one. She has appeared in a number of films, including Training Day, Spider-Man, Scary Movie 3, Lackawanna Blues, Idlewild and For Colored Girls. Gray is best known for her international hit single “I Try”, taken from her multi-platinum debut album On How Life Is.

In 2016, Gray made a large artistic leap by changing labels to record an album produced with binaural sound. Stripped (Chesky Records, 2016) marked the singer’s first steps into the world of audiophile recordings.

Natalie McIntyre was born in Canton, Ohio, the daughter of Laura McIntyre, a math schoolteacher, and Otis Jones who left when she was a baby. Her stepfather was a steelworker, and she has a sister who would become a biology teacher. She began piano lessons at age seven. A childhood bicycle mishap resulted in her noticing a mailbox of a man named Macy Gray; she used the name in stories she wrote and later decided to use it as her stage name.

Gray attended school with Brian Warner (later known as musician Marilyn Manson) although they did not know each other. She attended more than one high school including a boarding school which asked her to leave due to her behavior.

She attended college at the University of Southern California and studied script-writing.

While attending the University of Southern California, she agreed to write songs for a friend. A demo session was scheduled for the songs to be recorded by another singer, but the vocalist failed to appear, so Gray recorded them herself.

I started forming bands and writing songs just for fun and then I really got into it and got attached to it. Then a friend of mine asked me to be a singer in his jazz band. He gave me all these jazz CDs and I studied all these different singers and I kind of taught myself how to sing for a gig, but I didn’t take it seriously until later.

She then met writer-producer Joe Solo while working as a cashier in Beverly Hills. Together, they wrote a collection of songs and recorded them in Solo’s studio. The demo tape gave Gray the opportunity to sing at jazz cafés in Los Angeles. Initially, Gray did not consider her unusual voice desirable for singing, Atlantic Records signed her. She began recording her debut record but was dropped from the label upon the departure of A&R man Tom Carolan, who had signed her to the label. Macy returned to Ohio but in 1997 Los Angeles based Zomba Publishing Senior VP A&R man Jeff Blue, convinced her to return to music and signed her to a development deal, recording new songs based on her life experiences, with a new sound, and began shopping her to record labels. In 1998, she landed a record deal with Epic Records. She performed on “Love Won’t Wait”, a song on the Black Eyed Peas’ debut album Behind the Front.

Gray worked on her debut album in 1999 with producer Darryl Swann. Released in the summer of 1999, On How Life Is became a worldwide smash. Despite the first single “Do Something” stalling on the charts, the release of the second single “I Try” made the album a success for Gray. “I Try” (which was originally featured in Love Jones and the Jennifer Aniston-starring romantic-comedy Picture Perfect in 1997) was one of the biggest singles of 1999, and subsequent singles “Still” and “Why Didn’t You Call Me” ensured the album became triple platinum in the US, quadruple platinum in the UK, and in Canada.

In 2001, Gray won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “I Try”, which was also nominated for “song of the year” and “record of the year”. She then collaborated with Fatboy Slim, the Black Eyed Peas, and Slick Rick (on the song “The World Is Yours”, from the Rush Hour 2 soundtrack), as well as acting for the first time, in the thriller Training Day. In August 2001, Gray was booed off the field at the Pro Football Hall of Fame exhibition game after forgetting the lyrics to the American national anthem.

Gray was married to Tracy Hinds, a mortgage broker, for about four years, but they divorced when her career was about to begin. They have three children:Aanisah, Mel, and Happy.

Along with her unique voice, she has a somewhat unusual appearance. Standing 6 feet (1.8 metres) tall, she has also worn her hair dramatically and for some part of her career was known for noticeable and creative wigs.

She opened the Macy Gray Music Academy in 2005.

After her quick rise to fame as a musician and songwriter, Macy Gray was featured on television and feature films, performing her music and/or appearing as herself or in cameos. However, she also began acting in small roles as well.

Isabel Sanford

On this date in 1917 Isabel Sanford was born. She is an African American actress.

From New York City, Sanford’s life story is the type that those in show business enjoy because it gives the struggling artist hope. After education in New York, she joined the Star Players (later the American Negro Theater) in the 1930s. Sanford worked with them until World War II started and the theater temporarily split up. After the war, Sanford had home obligations that put her career on hold. But her husband’s death was inspiration for Sanford’s dream.

With three children to support, she worked as a data processor by day and acted as she could in the evening and developed a life-long frugality about which she joked about. Sanford made it to the Broadway stage in James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner, and, in 1967 was given her film debut by producer-director Stanley Kramer in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? In it, Sanford was the ever-loyal housekeeper of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Her role of the maid was in stark contrast to the supposed liberalism of Hepburn and Tracy characters in the film, here Sanford offered a grand performance in what might be the last of the great strong, humorless Black domestics, a practice in American films and TV until the Civil Rights era. Sanford appeared in the feature Pendulum (1969) as well as making appearances on The Carol Burnett Show from 1967-69 as a stock player in some skits.

She also appeared on episodes of Julia as a woman who berated Dihann Carroll to make sure the widowed nurse wasn’t turning her son Corey into an “Oreo.” In 1971 came All in the Family. Sanford’s role was, at first, recurring, but as the producers could use her as a friend to Edith, it increased. The Jeffersons followed, with Sanford winning an Emmy in 1981 for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, the first African-American woman to win in that category in the history of the awards. Sanford made guest appearances on other shows and specials and appeared in the 1979 film Love at First Bite. Other film roles include Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and Original Gangstas (1996).

Isabel Sanford will always be known as Louise Jefferson, yet throughout her career, Sanford said more with her eyes and with her impeccable comic timing than others did with words. Isabelle Sanford died on July 12, 2004.

Michael Jackson King of pop

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor. Called the King of Pop, his contributions to music, dance and fashion along with his publicized personal life made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

The eighth child of the Jackson family, Michael made his professional debut in 1964 with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5, and began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. His music videos, including those of “Beat It”, “Billie Jean”, and “Thriller” from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. The popularity of these videos helped bring the television channel MTV to fame. Jackson’s 1987 album Bad spawned the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Bad”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Dirty Diana”, becoming the first album to have five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. He continued to innovate with videos such as “Black or White” and “Scream” throughout the 1990s, and forged a reputation as a touring solo artist. Through stage and video performances, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous artists of various music genres.

Thriller is the best-selling album of all time, with estimated sales of 65 million copies worldwide. Jackson’s other albums, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world’s best-selling albums. He is recognized as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time by Guinness World Records. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, and was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Dance Hall of Fame as the only dancer from pop and rock music. His other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records, 13 Grammy Awards, the Grammy Legend Award, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 26 American Music Awards—more than any other artist—including the “Artist of the Century” and “Artist of the 1980s”, 13 number-one singles in the United States during his solo career,—more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era—and estimated sales of over 350 million records worldwide. Jackson has won hundreds of awards, making him the most awarded recording artist in the history of popular music. He became the first artist in history to have a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades when “Love Never Felt So Good” reached number nine on May 21, 2014. Jackson traveled the world attending events honoring his humanitarianism, and, in 2000, the Guinness World Records recognized him for supporting 39 charities, more than any other entertainer.

Aspects of Jackson’s personal life, including his changing appearance, personal relationships, and behavior, generated controversy. In 1993, he was accused of child sexual abuse, but the civil case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and no formal charges were brought. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges after the jury found him not guilty on all counts. While preparing for his comeback concert series, “This Is It,” Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled his death a homicide, and his personal physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Jackson’s death triggered a global outpouring of grief, and a live broadcast of his public memorial service was viewed around the world. Forbes ranks Jackson as the top-earning dead celebrity, a title held for a sixth consecutive year, with $115 million in earnings.

Roxie Roker

Roxie Roker was born on this date in 1929. She was an African American actress and children’s advocate.

She was born in Miami to Albert Roker, who had emigrated from the Bahamas, and Bessie Roker. Roxie Roker attended Howard University and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1952. While at Howard, she was an active member in the Howard Players and was featured in several productions. She was also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

After graduation, Roker moved to New York City and began working in an office while appearing in several off-Broadway plays. She became a full-time actress after joining the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC).At NEC, Roker appeared in the plays Ododo and Rosalee Pritchard. In 1974, she won an Obie Award and was also nominated for a Tony for her performance as Mattie Williams in The River Niger. She married a Russian Jewish TV producer, Syl Kravitz. The couple had one child, Lenny Kravitz, in 1964. In 1975, Roker was cast in TV show, The Jeffersons. Her character, Helen Willis, played the wife in the first interracial couple on prime time TV. After the Jeffersons ended in 1985, she returned to the stage, touring with Mary Martin and Carol Channing in Legends.

Her community work, including her service as a board member of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, earned her two citations from the Los Angeles City Council. Roxie Roker died on December 2, 1995, from breast cancer.

Digital Underground Shock G

August 25th – Digital Underground founder Shock G was born Gregory E. Jacobs on this day in 1963 in Brooklyn, New York.

After relocating to Tampa, Florida from New York City, as a young teen, Shock G formed The Master Blasters, a sound system crew which consisted of three deejays and four MC’s.

The Master Blasters would perform before large crowds at Riverfront Park gatherings on Sunday afternoons.

Eventually Shock G’s reputation as a DJ caught the attention of Tony Stone, Program Director of Tampa’s WTMP radio, who gave the young Shock G a regular radio slot on the city’s top Black music radio station.

Shock G hosted a daily show on WTMP as Gregory Racker, making him the youngest radio host in Florida with a regular timeslot.

Later he would attend Hillsborough Community College where he studied music theory and piano.

It was at Hillsborough where he met the late Kenny Waters a.k.a. Kenny K.

The duo began performing as The Chill Factor and The Four Horsemen.

The two also would perform in several RnB bands around the US, with Shock G serving as the keyboardist.

In 1985, Shock G found his way to Oakland, California where he got a job in a music store.

It was here where Digital Underground was formed.

Along with Waters and Jimi Dright a.k.a. Chopmaster J they formed Digital Underground and released the single “Your Life’s A Cartoon” on Macola Records.

In 1989, Digital Underground signed with Tommy Boy Records and released the classic single “Doowutchylike”.

In 1990, the group’s debut album followed “Sex Packets”, which was almost a hip-hop reincarnation of P-Funk.

The group then put out their smash hit “The Humpty Dance”, which remains a hip-hop anthem until this very day.

“The Humpty Dance” saw Shock G take on the persona of Humpty Hump, an alter-ego that wore a Groucho Marx nose and glasses set with a comedic flare.

Shock G has taken on many artistic personas throughout his career like Rackadelic, MC Blowfish, Ice Michael Boston, The Computer Woman, ButtaFly and Peanut Hakeem.

Digital Underground by this point also consisted of DJ Fuze, Money-B, Schmoovy Schmoov, Ramone “Pee Wee” Gooden and a young Tupac Shakur serving as a roadie, dancer and occasional MC.

Shock G would release nine albums with Digital Underground and become one of the most creative producers in hip-hop history.

Over the years, Shock would collaborate with, or produce music for, the likes of George Clinton, Prince, KRS-One, Mac Mall, The Luniz, Murs as well as co-producing 2Pac’s debut album “2Pacalypse Now”.

Shock G also appeared in the film “Nothing But Trouble” with Digital Underground performing as the world’s first hip-hop band with 2Pac making his professional rapping debut on the song “Same Song”.

Shock G is considered, by many, as a one of the most original innovators in hip-hop history.

Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant was born on this date in 1978. He was an African American professional basketball player and has become an investor.

Kobe Bean Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player and former WNBA head coach Joe “Jellybean” Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He is also the maternal nephew of John “Chubby” Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan. He started playing basketball when he was 3 years old, and his grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games, which Bryant would study.

When Bryant was six, his father moved his family to Italy to play professional basketball. Bryant became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak Italian and Spanish fluently. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play summer league basketball and he also learned to play soccer. In 1991, the Bryant family moved back to the United States. Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School near Philadelphia.

As a freshman, he played for the varsity (junior and senior) basketball team. His father coached him his sophomore year of high school with Bryant playing all five positions. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award, while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. He ended his career as Southeastern Pennsylvania’s all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons, Lower Merion alumni. Bryant received several awards for his performance his senior year including being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men’s National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald’s All-American, and a All-USA First Team player. In 1996, Bryant took singer and friend Brandy Norwood to his senior prom.

His SAT score of 1080 would have ensured his college basketball scholarship. Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant’s news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common. Bryant said that had he decided to go to college after high school, he would have attended Duke University.

The first guard to ever be taken out of high school, Bryant was chosen as the 13th overall draft pick by the Charlotte Hornets in 1996. However, the Hornets’ head scout at the time agreed to trade their draft selection to the Lakers the day before the draft. The Lakers didn’t tell the Hornets whom to select until five minutes before the pick was made. On July 1, 1996, West traded his starting center, Vlade Divac, to the Hornets in exchange for Bryant’s draft rights. Since he was still 17 at the time of the draft, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began.

Bryant is a shooting guard who can play small forward too. He is considered one of the most complete players in the NBA, has been selected to every All-NBA Team since 1999. He is a creative scorer, averaging 25.3 points per game for his career, along with 5.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.5 steals (as of the end of the 2009–2010 regular season). He shares the single-game NBA record for three pointers made with twelve and he a standout defender, having made the All-Defensive first or second team ten of the last eleven seasons.

In 1999, Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video “G’d Up”. Bryant was in the building working on his debut musical album, which was never released. The two began dating and became engaged just six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. They married on April 18, 2001, Bryant’s parents, his two sisters, longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, nor Bryant’s Laker teammates attended. Bryant’s parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant’s parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period, which ended when Bryant had his first daughter. The Bryants’ first child is Natalia Diamante Bryant. Vanessa Bryant suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter is Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant.

In the summer of 2003, Bryant was arrested in connection with a sexual assault complaint filed by 19-year old hotel employee Katelyn Faber. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera hotel in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. Faber accused Bryant of raping her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser, but denied her sexual assault allegation. In September 2004, prosecutors dropped the assault case after Faber refused to testify in the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to Faber for the incident, including his public mea culpa: “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.” Faber filed a separate civil lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides ultimately settled with the specific terms of the settlement being undisclosed to the public.

Bryant is the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in 13 US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund, which will partner with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund will raise money within China earmarked for education and health programs. Bryant has won five NBA World Championships with the Los Angeles Lakers: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009 and 2010. Bryant has been injured off and on since 2012 and is in his mid 30’s. He played until the end of the 2015/16 season with the Lakers. On April 13, 2016, Bryant played his final NBA game against the Utah Jazz, scoring a season-high 60 points

Dave Chappelle

David Khari Webber Chappelle (born August 24, 1973) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. After beginning his film career in 1993 as Ahchoo in Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights, he landed supporting roles in box office hits including The Nutty Professor, Con Air, You’ve Got Mail, Blue Streak and Undercover Brother. His first lead role was in the 1998 comedy film Half Baked, which he co-wrote with Neal Brennan. Chappelle also starred in the ABC TV series Buddies. His comedy focuses on racism, relationship problems, social problems, politics, current events, and pop culture.

In 2003, Chappelle became more widely known for his sketch comedy television series, Chappelle’s Show, also co-written with Brennan, which ran until his retirement from the show two years later. After leaving the show, Chappelle returned to performing stand-up comedy across the U.S.

In 2016 he signed a $20 million-per-release comedy-special deal with Netflix, which has released four of his specials.

By 2006, Chappelle was called the “comic genius of America” by Esquire and, in 2013, “the best” by a Billboard writer. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him No. 9 in their “50 Best Stand Up Comics of All Time.” Chappelle was awarded an Emmy Award for his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live In 2017. He received a Grammy Award for his Netflix specials The Age of Spin & Deep in the Heart of Texas.

David Khari Webber Chappelle was born in Washington, D.C. on August 24, 1973, the youngest of three children. His father, William David Chappelle III, worked as a statistician before becoming a professor at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. His mother, Yvonne K Chappelle Seon (née Reed), is half white and was a professor at Howard University, Prince George’s Community College, and the University of Maryland. Seon also worked for Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. She is also a Unitarian Universalist minister. Chappelle has a stepmother and a stepbrother. He is the great-grandson of Bishop William D. Chappelle, a former president of Allen University.

Chappelle grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Woodlin Elementary School. His parents were politically active, and family house visitors included Pete Seeger and Johnny Hartman. The latter predicted Chappelle would be a comedian and, around this time, Chappelle’s comic inspiration came from Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. After his parents separated, Chappelle stayed in Washington with his mother while spending summers with his father in Ohio. In 1991, he graduated from Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where he studied theatre arts.

Magic Johnson

Earvin Johnson Jr. grew up in Lansing, Michigan, with nine brothers and sisters. His father worked in a General Motors plant; his mother was a school custodian. Young Johnson sang on street corners with his buddies and played basketball. “Junior,” or “June Bug” as his neighbors called him, was on the court by 7:30 many mornings. Johnson’s basketball career began at Michigan State University, where he led his team to the N. C. A. A. Championship game victory and was named Most Valuable Player in the N. C. A. A. Final Four.

In 1979, made him available for the professional draft and was the first player picked by the Los Angeles Lakers. He was an All-Star as a rookie and helped guide the Lakers to their first championship since 1972. During the 1980s, Johnson orchestrated the now-famous Lakers offense known as “Showtime,” and the team became one of the best in the game. Over the course of his 12 N.B.A. seasons, Johnson left a trail of records that marked him as one of the best players in history. His quick smile and sociable personality made him a favorite among fans and advertisers.

On November 7, 1991, Johnson announced that he had tested positive for H.I.V. during a routine physical exam. He also announced that, he was retiring from the N.B.A. on the advice of his physician. He was still elected to the 1992-93 All-Star team and was a member of the 1992 U. S. Olympic Basketball “Dream Team.” He became part owner of the Lakers team and even stepped in as head coach for the last 16 games of the 1993-94 season. He also became very active in charitable causes, including the United States National AIDS Committee, the United Negro College Fund, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the American Heart Association and the Urban League. To improve the quality of life in inner-city neighborhoods, he built a chain of state-of-the-art multiplex movie theaters, the Magic Johnson Theaters. In 1996, Johnson stunned the world by returning to the N.B.A.

On January 29, 1996, he played his first N.B.A. game in five years. His return lit a fire under the slumping Lakers, and they won 29 of their last 40 games, earning the fourth seed in the Western Conference playoffs. After a first-round defeat, Johnson decided once again to retire. The following year, Johnson signed a deal with Twentieth TV to develop, produce, and host his own late-night talk show, “The Magic Hour.”

Married (to Cookie) with two children, Magic Johnson remains very busy in worldwide business and humanitarian causes.

Written by Dianne Washington

Bernie Mac

Bernard Jeffrey “Bernie” McCullough (October 5, 1957 – August 9, 2008), better known by his stage name Bernie Mac, was an American stand-up comedian, actor and voice artist. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Mac gained popularity as a stand-up comedian. He joined comedians Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and D. L. Hughley in The Original Kings of Comedy.

After briefly hosting the HBO show Midnight Mac, Mac appeared in several films in smaller roles. His most noted film role was as Frank Catton in the remake Ocean’s Eleven and the titular character of Mr. 3000. He was the star of The Bernie Mac Show, which ran from 2001 through 2006, earning him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Mac’s other films included starring roles in Booty Call, Friday, The Players Club, Head of State, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Bad Santa, Guess Who, Pride, Soul Men, Transformers and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, a disease in which abnormal collections of chronic inflammatory cells (granulomas) form as nodules in multiple organs, particularly the lungs and lymph nodes. Lung scarring or infection may lead to respiratory failure and death. Mac had mentioned the condition was in remission in 2005. His death on August 9, 2008 was caused by complications from pneumonia.

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago, Illinois on October 5, 1957. He was raised on the city’s South Side by his single mother, Mary, who died of cancer when he was 16 years old in his sophomore year of high school.

He put on shows for neighborhood kids on the South Side. He attended Chicago Vocational Career Academy where Dick Butkus also earlier attended. Later, Mac moved to Tampa, Florida. During his 20s, he worked in a variety of jobs, including furniture mover and a UPS agent.

ernie 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’s comedy and fearlessness onstage cemented his reputation with fans and colleagues.

He 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 and got his big break as “Pastor Clever” in Ice Cube’s 1995 film Friday. Following that role, 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 gave an impressive performance 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, and made an appearance in the 2007 film Transformers as the car salesman “Bobby Bolivia”. In his later years, he 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”. His final film role was as “Jimmy Lunchbox,” a flamboyant children’s entertainer 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 particular film.

In 2001, the Fox network gave Mac his own semi-autobiographical 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. It was a success, in part because it allowed Mac to stay true to his stand-up comedy roots, breaking the fourth wall to communicate 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 die-hard 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. Bernie Mac’s “fourth wall” technique allowed him a moment of heartfelt sincerity during the sitcom’s 2005 season when, sitting in his customary easy chair and facing the audience before the start of an episode, Bernie unabashedly donned 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 barely left a conclusion for the series, and no ending to the storyline of Bernie and Wanda trying to have a baby which had been abandoned a few episodes earlier. Among other awards, the show won an Emmy for “Outstanding Writing”, the Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, and the Humanitas Prize for television writing that promotes human dignity. His character on The Bernie Mac Show was ranked #47 in TV Guide‍‍ ‘‍s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time”.

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 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.”

In 2008, Mac was admitted to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. After a week of unsuccessful medical treatment, Mac went into cardiac arrest and died during the early morning hours of August 9, from complications of pneumonia. In the final three 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 Mac’s lungs. Mac’s public funeral was held a week after his death at the House of Hope Church with nearly 7,000 people in attendance. 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 his eponymous series and his Kings of Comedy fellows D. L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Steve Harvey.

The first two of Mac’s posthumous films Soul Men and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa were released three months after his death. Mac’s third and final posthumous film, Old Dogs, was released a year after his death. The 2008 Bud Billiken Parade, which was held in Chicago at the time of Mac’s death, was also dedicated to his memory. On the day of Mac’s funeral, his hometown’s local television station WCIU-TV aired an exclusive television special, A Tribute to Bernie Mac, and had interviews with his former colleagues including Camille Winbush, Chris Rock, Joe Torry and some of his family members and close friends.