The news of the sudden demise of one of America’s top actors cum comedian Bernie Marc (Bernard Jeffrey McCollough) came as a big shock to most of his fans in Kenya and abroad. The stand up comedian who features on KTN’s Bernie Marc died from complications related to pneumonia last Saturday at age 50.
The show (Bernie Marc Show) garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac, the Peabody Award, the Humanities Prize for television writing that promotes human dignity, and several other prestigious accolades a while ago.
Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago in a rough neighbourhood with a large family living under one roof, this situation inspired Mac to his comical career. After his single mother died of breast cancer when he was 16 years and in high school, he joined the Chicago Vocational Career Academy and started his comedy career as a stand up comedian where he put on shows for neighbourhood kids on Chicago’s South Side.
He also worked in a variety of jobs, including furniture moving and bread delivery person. He later worked in the Regal Theatre, and performed in Chicago parks under his original name. At that time, he once said in an interview, he was broke and was forced to borrow a suit from his brother.
Professional comedian
He became a professional comedian in 1977 at the age of 19 but refused to change his image for television and films, and therefore was not well known for the better part of the 1980s.
His first break came at the age of 32 in 1990 when he won the Miller Lite Comedy Search that saw him reach headliners like Dionne Warwick, Redd Foxx and Natalie Cole. A performance on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam thrust him into the spotlight within no time.
The year 1995 proved to be a turning point in his career when he won wider audience exposure. Mentioned in Christina Aguilera’s single Dirrty, he also won a part in Chris Tucker’s comedy Friday, and got his own HBO special called, Midnight Mac. From there he moved on to a role in Spike Lee’s movie, Get On The Bus, and was offered a recurring role in the TV series Moesha.
Before he knew it, he featured in The Original Kings of Comedy (2000) alongside top comedians like Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer and DL Hughley. This made him a household name. In 2001 he played Martin Lawrence’s Uncle in What’s the Worst That Could Happen? (2001), and later that year, he was in the star studded remake of Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its two sequels. However his biggest success was the making of The Bernie Mac Show (2001), which was an instant success.
The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with this Fox television series, which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending "race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion -- and cool."
In his 2004 memoir, Maybe You Never Cry Again, Mac wrote about having a poor childhood and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing. "I came from a place where there was not a lot of joy," he said in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn’t a lot of things to laugh about."
"The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac, he gave them their money’s worth."
- CAROLINE NYANGA
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