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Saturday, August 9, 2008
8/9: Bernie Mac, a true comedian, 1958-2008
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When I worked at the Wall Street Journal, I wrote a piece nearly a decade ago on the promoter Walter Latham and how he put together the Kings of Comedy tour, which sold out arenas across the country with two already established TV stars D.L. Hughley and Steve Harvey, along with two veteran standups on the cusp of big-time stardom: Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac.
I recall Cedric being the goofy one, Steve the smooth old school guy, D.L. Hughley the consummate professional and Bernie the dude with the potty mouth. He hit it hard and the audience ate it up. I led off my story with one of Bernie’s jokes and managed to get the F word into the lead of a WSJ story (as in ——ing but you knew that was the word.) The tour success (along with the Spike Lee concert film) led Fox TV to pick up his innovative comedy “The Bernie Mac Show.” The dirty part of his act was expunged but the premise showed what a truly loving family guy he could be. He was irascible, exasperted and mischievous but in a purely harmless way, a new generation Sanford. I always found the show amusing and while it never became a huge hit and seemed to move around the schedule every five minutes, it lasted five seasons, enough for syndication.
I caught up with Steve Harvey this afternoon to get comments for a print reaction story. Here’s what I sent to the editors:
Atlanta resident and radio host Steve Harvey worked with Bernie Mac for four years on the groundbreaking, hugely successful “Kings of Comedy” tour. He said the quartet (which also included D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer) earlier this year talked about a 10-year reunion tour but said Bernie wasn’t up for it, healthwise.
“I am just numb,” Harvey said Saturday afternoon after doing a succession of interviews to CNN and other media while in Chicago. On the tour, “B Mac killed every night. Every night! He would close the show. He was the go to guy.”
His best memory of Bernie on the tour? “At the end, he’d take off his handkerchief, wipe the sweat off his brow, throw it in the audience and open his arms wide open,” Harvey said. “That is the image I’ll always remember.”
He plans to spend his entire syndicated show, which airs mornings in Atlanta at Grown Folks 102.5, sharing memories with listeners about Bernie Mac on Monday. “Right now,” he said, “I’m flying back to Atlanta and I’m going to hug my family,”
