Riddles Comedy Membership in Alsip holds celebration honoring the late legendary comic Bernie Mac

ALSIP, Ailing. (WLS) — Stars got here out Saturday evening to have fun the life and legacy of the late comic Bernie Mac.

Mac was a Chicago native and handed away in 2008.

Riddles Comedy Membership held the celebration in honor of Mac.

It is via their laughter that they bear in mind the late legendary comic.

Followers, fellow comedians and Mac’s household got here collectively to pay tribute to one in every of Chicago’s most well-known humorous males who would have been turned 65 this week.

“It has been 14 years,” stated Mac’s daughter, Je’ niece McCullough. “I do know what it means to me, however to go searching in any respect these individuals to see how a lot they nonetheless bear in mind him, love him and have fun him – it is humbling.”

The citywide two-day celebration was at a southwest suburban comedy membership in Alsip, which is co-owned by well-known Chicago comic and Mac buddy, Damon Williams.

“Bernie was like a mentor to me, like an enormous brother to me,” Williams. Stated.

The Saturday present featured almost a dozen native comedians, together with comic Stephon who credit Mac with giving him his large break almost 30 years in the past.

“He introduced that each one out of me and I simply suppose the chance he noticed to provide me, he stated, ‘Hey do it,’ Stephon stated. “And I have been doing it ever since.”

Mac started his profession as a standup comic and skyrocketed to fame together with his typically uncooked, however actual, comedy.

His expertise garnered him roles in movies like, “The Unique Kings of Comedy,” “Head of State,” “Charlie’s Angels,” and “Oceans Eleven.”

He grew to become a TV star together with his self-titled sitcom, “The Bernie Mac Present,” which ran for 5 seasons and earned him a number of Emmy Award nominations.

However the laughter was silenced in 2008 when Mac died of issues of sarcoidosis, a respiratory illness.

Proceeds from the weekend celebration will go towards researching the sickness as those that attended the occasion honor his legacy.

“That is legacy. That is his life. That is his laughter,” stated Yvonne Moore, the Bernie Mac Official Model Supervisor. “So it is at all times current while you say, Bernie Mac.”