Entertainment Industry Loses Hayes, Mac
Music Icon Hayes, Comedian Mac Both Die Over Weekend
R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 8/10/2008 7:36:00 PM
Two legendary entertainers, Grammy and Oscar award-winning music icon Issac Hayes and comedian Bernie Mac died over this past weekend.
Hayes, who endeared himself to cable television viewers for nearly a decade as the voice of "Chef" in Comedy Central’s animated series South Park, was found dead in his home Sunday (Aug. 10).
Hayes, 65, was best known for his 1971 Grammy and Oscar winning theme song from the movie Shaft. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
From 1997 to 2006, Hayes provided the sultry, deep voice of "Chef" for Comedy Central’s irreverent animated series, but he left South Park in 2006 after an episode poked fun at his own religion, the Church of Scientology.
Hayes had recently completed a movie titled Soul Men, which also starred Samuel Jackson as well as Bernie Mac, who himself died Saturday (Aug. 9) after a bout with pneumonia.
The 50 year-old Mac gained prominence as a standup comedian – including his tour run as one of the The Original Kings Of Comedy – but also won praise for his acting on the big screen in the Ocean Eleven franchise and on the small screen with The Bernie Mac Show. The comedy sitcom, based loosely on his life, aired on Fox between 2001 and 2006, according to Variety.
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