‘Heaven just got funnier’: stars react to Bernie Mac’s death
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August 10th, 2008
Friends of performer Bernie Mac, who died early Saturday in Chicago from complications from pneumonia, are expressing their grief and praise for the 50-year-old comedian.
“The world just got a little less funny,” said Oceans 11 co-star George Clooney.
Another Oceans franchise star, Don Cheadle, threw in his reaction upon hearing of Mac’s death:
“He brought so much joy to so many. He will be missed but heaven just got funnier.”
“[It] is such a major loss to the acting and comedy communities,” Mac’s former co-star, Niecy Nash, told Usmagazine.com in a statement.
Nash, 38, played Mac’s little sister, Benita, on The Bernie Mac Show, which aired from 2001 to 2006. She praised his “genuine spirit,” which he brought to work.
“When I showed up to work, he said something to me that had never been said to me on a set before. He said, ‘Baby girl, the script here is not the Bible. Do you and I’ll follow. I got mine, you get yours.’ When he said that, I knew everything was going to be all right. I was happy to have the freedom to make up some funny with him. It was simply delicious.”
Bryant Lee Turner, a Chicago comic known as BLT, called Mac a mentor.
“What Bernie brought for comics all over was his style. There’s only one Bernie Mac style: straight forth, it’s the realism,” Turner told the Chicago Tribune.
“Bernie gave you the sense that if you put the work in, it’ll pay off for you eventually.”
“It’s truly the passing of one of our favourite sons,” said Paula Robinson, president of Chicago’s Black Metropolis National Heritage Area.
Robinson hailed Mac, who was raised in the city’s south side and maintained the Chicago as his home, as an ambassador for the black community.
“He was extremely innovative in putting his life experiences in comedic form and doing it without vulgarity.”
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