Comedian Bernie Mac’s death at age 50 represented one of the most unanticipated losses of 2008, recalling the passings earlier this year of Heath Ledger, Sydney Pollack and others. The victim of fatal complications arising from pneumonia, Mac died in a Chicago hospital Saturday morning, devastating those who looked forward in eager anticipation to the rumored possibility of a second sitcom headlined by the comic and to many forthcoming movie roles. In tribute, we present this brief reflection on the popular comedian’s life and many fine accomplishments.

One who inherited the torch of contemporary African American stand-up from such predecessors as Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor and carried it into the 21st century, Mac (like his forerunners) layered his routines with edgy and profane, albeit truthful, insights into domestic life, race relations, urban violence and all manner of other contemporary phenomena that made him incredibly popular, particularly with young urban audiences. A Windy City native, Mac (born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough) actually got his start performing in church at the age of eight (in the mid-1960s), then graduated to public performances in parks and beside Chicago’s El tracks, before eventually going professional and hitting local stand-up clubs. The 1990s represented Mac’s breakthrough decade – with supporting roles in such films as Mo’ Money (1992) and Above the Rim (1994) – and he found his greatest legacy in that decade via two accomplishments. First, he began touring with Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer as the ensemble “The Original Kings of Comedy” - a series of stand-up engagements that commenced in 1997 and ran for over two years, wrapping up in February of 2000. In the process, it evolved into the single most lucrative comedy tour in U.S. history; Spike Lee shot some of the final concerts and edited them into the eponymous concert film The Original Kings of Comedy, which hit cinemas in the late summer of 2000 to generally enthusiastic reviews. Mac took a decidedly more acidic approach than his co-stars, using his routine to expostulate at length on such subjects as child-rearing, wife-beating and drug addicted family members. He drew some of his heartiest critical praise from Roger Ebert, who sensed a painful autobiographical subtext beneath some of the material and observed, ” I got the feeling that Bernie Mac, working open-ended, free to improvise, would end up in some strange and fraught places, some funny, some just true.”

Indeed, Ebert was both perceptive and correct in denoting the deeply personal origins of much of the material; inspired by the success of his contributions to the comedy tour, Mac then set about developing and producing a sitcom based on some of these same familial experiences, with the same unvarnished honesty and truth (albeit less of a profane edge, to accommodate television’s more conservative standards). The plan worked; as co-created with Larry Wilmore, The Bernie Mac Show debuted on Fox in 2001 and immediately connected with young, hip, largely African American audiences who related to the show’s wit. It ran until 2006, at which point Mac got to work on the films Ocean’s Thirteen and Transformers. His memorable turns in both had fans excited for his upcoming project Soul Men, a comedy with Samuel L. Jackson about a couple of retired, middle-aged soul singers embarking on a reunion tour. The film is currently in post-production.