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Bernie Mac blended style, authority and a touch of self-aware bluster to make audiences laugh as well as connect with him. For Mac, who died Saturday at age 50, it was a winning mix, delivering him from a poor childhood to stardom as a standup comedian, in films including the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and his acclaimed sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show." Mac died Saturday morning of complications from pneumonia. "The world just got a little less funny," said "Oceans" co-star George Clooney.

CHICAGO — Bernie Mac, an Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor and comedian, died suddenly Saturday at age 50 of complications from pneumonia...

Comedian Bernie Mac died at Northwestern Memorial hospital early Saturday morning, according to Sun-Times Columnist, Stella Foster. He was 50. Though the cause of death has not been confirmed, Mac had been hospitalized recently for pneumonia. Foster said that she received calls early Saturday morning from a close friend of the Mac family, confirming the reports of Mac's death. On Friday, a spokeswoman for the actor, whose real name is, Bernard McCullough, said that he had been responding well to treatment for the illness. Mac made waves last month with off-color jokes during a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack...

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Bernie Mac said some things that didn’t jive with Obama’s crowd and got a negative reaction for it. Bernie Mac’s show at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago didn’t fly so well on Friday night as he appeared for a fund-raiser for Barack Obama. In one of his jokes he said, “My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the different between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?’ I said, ‘I don’t know,’ but I said, ‘Go upstairs and ask your mother if she’d make love to the mailman for $50,000,’” reported the Associated Press. This...

It’s one of the iron rules of politics – you have more to fear from your friends than from you enemies. Senator Barack Obama’s supporter, Jesse Jackson, seemingly threatened him bodily harm this week. Senator John McCain’s pal and economic adviser, Phil Gramm, went all “mental” on him a day later. Then, last night in Chicago, a longtime friend and supporter of Mr. Obama, the comedian Bernie Mac, “entertained” an Obama fundraiser crowd with a humor routine touching on menopause, prostitution and black family relations. By the time he was wrapping up his remarks, some in the crowd had turned...