Born on Chicago’s south side, Bernard Jeffrey McCullough (October 5, 1957),  better known as Bernie Mac, was an actor and stand-up comedian. Influenced by comedians Red Foxx and Richard Pryor, he got his start appearing at Chicago’s Cotton Club.  His popularity began to grow when he won the Miller Lite Comedy Search at 32 years of age.   His popularity continued growing  until he joined fellow Black comedians Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and D. L. Hughley in the film “The Original Kings of Comedy.”

Briefly hosting the comedy show Midnight Mac, he appeared in several minor film roles.   His most noted roles included Frank Catton in the 2001 remake of Ocean’s Eleven and as the title character of Mr. 3000, a 2004 sports comedy directed by Charles Stone III in which he played the part of a retired Major League Baseball player who comes out of retirement to attain a goal of 3000 hits.

As the star of the American sitcom series the Bernie Mac Show,  he earned two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.  This series ran from 2001 to 2006.

In the summer of 2004, when Mac was filming both Ocean’s Twelve and Guess Who while also promoting Mr. 3000,  set to film the remainder of Season 4 of The Bernie Mac Show in October of that year, he contracted pneumonia in both lungs and suffering from exhaustion, Fox halted production for four weeks so Mac could recover.

On August 1, 2008, Mac was admitted to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in his hometown of Chicago. Suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease of unknown origin that causes inflammation in the tissue, after a week of unsuccessful medical treatment, Mac went into cardiac arrest. He died during the early morning hours on August 9, from complications of pneumonia at the age of 50.

Recently, after 13 years, the Walker-Bryce Creative LLC with the help of Mac’s widow Rhonda McCullough released the book “I Don’t Care If You Like Me, I Like Me: Bernie Mac’s Daily Motivational,” a daily motivational book in the voice of the late Bernie Mac. It’s a humorous but poignant page-a-day prescription for a better life and career.

This book has a foreword by Sinbad, an afterword by Lil Rel Howery, and early endorsements from Sherri Shepherd (“It’s the perfect combination of comedy and truth, just like you’d expect from Bernie Mac.”) and other celebrity endorsements from Kym Whitley, Courtney B. Vance, and Damon Williams, and a funny but poignant audiobook voiced by celebrity impersonator and comedian Reggie Reg!

MMW.News. How is the promotion of the book going?