http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/09/bernie.mac/index.html
(CNN) -- Comic actor Bernie Mac died early Saturday of complications from pneumonia, according to a family member and his publicist. He was 50.
Bernie Mac, 50, had been hospitalized in his hometown, Chicago, with pneumonia.
He had been hospitalized in Chicago, Illinois, for more than a week with the lung infection.
Danica Smith, the comedian's publicist, had said Thursday that Mac's condition was "stable," The Associated Press reported.
"When I got the call this morning, it was just devastating news," said Chicago Sun-Times columnist Stella Foster. "Let's face it: Bernie Mac was one of a kind. He was the best of the best in terms of giving you a good laugh."
Smith previously said the pneumonia wasn't related to sarcoidosis, a lung disease Mac had, which had been in remission since 2005, according to AP.
Mac caused a stir in July with some jokes he made during a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, AP reported.
Mac -- born Bernard Jeffrey McCollough -- starred in the Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show." His film roles included the "Ocean's Eleven" series, "Friday," "Get on the Bus," "Transformers" and "Bad Santa."
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
