Monday 11 August 2008

Bernie Mac dies






Comedian Bernie Mac's family had expected him to fully recover from the tear of pneumonia that place him in a infirmary three weeks ago, his daughter aforesaid Sunday.

However, Je'niece Childress aforesaid that as time passed she and her mother braced for the possibility that he could die.

Mac, 50, died Saturday from what his publicist said were complications from pneumonia.

Childress said Mac had been at Northwestern Memorial Hospital since the middle of July.

"Initially when he was hospitalized we expected him to come back nursing home, but as the weeks went on, I kind of knew," Childress told The Associated Press.

Mac also suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease, simply he had said the condition went into remitment in 2005. His publiciser, Danica Smith, has aforementioned the pneumonia was unrelated to the sarcoidosis.

Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago, got his start doing standup as a child. His successful career included his own Fox television serial, "The Bernie Mac Show" and leading roles in "Ocean's Eleven," "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

Childress said Mac, who maintained a home in the south Chicago suburb of Frankfort, was a loving father, married man and granddad. Childress, 30, is his only child, and has a one-year-old daughter. She said her mother, Rhonda McCullough, and Mac were married for 32 years.

"He was a hard isle of Man and he made no apologies for that," Childress said. "When it came to me and my mother and my girl he was the softest."

Recently, Mac's brand of funniness caught him some pom-pom when he joked around menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Obama's campaign later said the jokes were "inappropriate."

"I tolerant of figured he was going to get a lot of backlash," Childress said. "Telling that joke at that time belike wasn't the best thought, but that's him."

Childress aforementioned there was always laughter in their home.

"Because that's just world Health Organization he was," Childress aforementioned. "I'm sad that my daughter testament never know or be able to feel how much he loved her."

"I think he will constantly be remembered as one of the original kings of comedy," Childress said. "I think what made him so special to people was that regular though he was a celebrity he just seemed so depressed to earth and so much like a component part of your family."

She said funeral arrangements were pending. Smith said a public memorial would be held next weekend at House of Hope in Chicago.








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