Bernard Jeffrey McCullough (October 5, 1957 -- August 9, 2008), better known by the stage name Bernie Mac, was an American actor and comedian. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Mac gained notoriety as a stand-up comedian. He joined comedians Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer and D.L. Hughley as The Original Kings of Comedy. Mac was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised by a single mother, Mary, who died of cancer when Mac was sixteen. Mac attended Chicago Vocational Career Academy. Mac started his career during high school, when he would put on shows for neighborhood kids in Chicago's South Side until moving to Tampa. During his 20s he worked in a variety of jobs, including furniture mover, UPS agent, and a bread delivery sales rep. Mac started as a stand-up comedian in Chicago's Cotton Pickin' Club. He won the Miller Lite Comedy Search at the age of 32, at which point his popularity as a comedian began to grow. A performance on HBO's Def Comedy Jam thrust him into the spotlight. He opened for Dionne Warwick, Redd Foxx and Natalie Cole. Mac was one of the few African American comedic actors to be able to break out of the traditional "black comedy" genre, having roles in the 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven and becoming the new Bosley for the Charlie's Angels sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. In 2003, he also turned in an impressive performance in a small but important role as Gin "The Store Dick" in Bad Santa. He also starred in Guess Who?, a comedic remake of the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. He also made an appearance in the 2007 movie Transformers as the car salesman Bobby Bolivia. In 2001, Fox gave Mac his own sitcom called The Bernie Mac Show, somewhat based on his own life. In the show, he suddenly becomes custodian over his sister's three children after she enters rehab. It was a success, in part because it allows Mac to stay true to his stand-up comedy roots, breaking the fourth wall to communicate his thoughts to the audience. The show contained many parodies of events in Bernie's actual life. His character on The Bernie Mac Show was ranked #47 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" Mac was number 72 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time. On March 19, 2007 Mac told David Letterman on CBS Late Show that he would retire from his 30-year career after he finished shooting the comedy film The Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth, So Help Me Mac. "I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know." On August 1, 2008, Mac was hospitalized with, according to his publicist, pneumonia. The next day, responding to rumors that the actor was in "very, very critical condition." On August 9, 2008, Bernie Mac died from, according to his publicist, complications from pneumonia.