Comedian and actor, Bernie Mac died early Saturday morning due to complications pneumonia, his publicist confirmed. Mac, was only 50 years old and suffered from a rare autoimmune disease called sarcoidosis which causes inflammation in tissue, most often in the lungs. He had been hospitalized for a week in Northwestern Hospital for a week before his death.

Bernie Mac decided he wanted to be a comedian at the age of only 10 years-old and he has become one of the most successful comedians around. When Mac was 32 he won the Miller Lite comedy, which ultimately led to regular performances on popular shows like HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam.” He later gained respect in HBO’s popular late-night series Def Comedy Jam in 1992.  “I ain’t scared of you [expletive]!” became his signature tagline. Many took note of the blue comics performance, which later led to a bit part in 1992’s “Mo’ Money,” and later an HBO Special, “Midnight Mac.”

As an actor he was part of the re-newed rat pack in all three of the “Ocean” films. He co-starred with Ashton Kutcher in a reverse remake of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in 2005. Last spring, Mac said that he was hanging up his stand up career, and instead would focus more on movies. In 2007, he co-starred in “Ocean’s Thirteen,” “Pride” and had a role in the blockbuster “Transformers.” Scheduled for release is “Soul Men,” with Samuel L. Jackson, which will be released this year, and “Old Dogs,” with Robin Williams, which is due next year.

Most recently, Mac garnered attention for making unsavory comments at a Barack Obama benefit that the presumptive Democratic candidate had to distance himself from.

The comic born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough could cut an imposing figure. He stood 6-foot-3, was built like a fullback and carried himself with a bouncer’s reticence. But perhaps the strongest weapon in the Chicago comedian’s arsenal was that voice, that amalgam of thought and a delivery that could rise like a tidal wave, outpace a Gatling gun and remained, to his last days, loud and unapologetic.

He wasn’t scared, he told us time and again, to tell anyone what he thought, to say what others were afraid to say. That fearlessness wasn’t always welcome, considering Mac didn’t get his big break until his 30s. But when he did, the comic skyrocketed to success in stand-up, television and the big screen.

“Black audiences are hard,” he told the New York Times in 2002. “You got to come with a little extra to satisfy them.”

In a few short years, he was able to put a stamp on this tell-it-like-it-is brand of comedy that audiences had come to know him for. He was a hit on the stage, delivering sordid tales of his early life growing up on Chicago’s South Side.

His work hit home to the African American audience — his aggressive, brash comedy had a down home feel to it, tackling everything from family life to black romantic relationships — yet Mac was able to cross it over, connecting with a majority entertainment scene.

“When I started in comedy in the clubs in 1977, blacks couldn’t do certain clubs — not because they were segregated. They just didn’t want to put the [black comics] out there. In Los Angeles, the clubs would have a black night. People would say, ‘Why don’t you come by and do something?’ I would say, ‘I’m a comedian — don’t put a title on me.’ Don’t limit yourself. How you start is how you finish,” he told the Tribune in 2007. “If you let people put tags on you, you’ll never be able to remove them. You’ve got to make people respect you. Respect is bigger than dollars and cents.”

But Mac’s health was also a factor. In 2004, he halted production on the show while recovering from exhaustion. A year later, he disclosed that he suffered from sarcoidosis, a rare autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in tissue, most often in the lungs.

Mac is survived by his wife Rhonda McCullough, their daughter, Je’Niece, a son-in-law and a granddaughter, Jasmine.

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