Bernie Mac, the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor and comedian who worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago’s South Side, has died at age 50.

Mac publicist Danica Smith says in a statement the comedian passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist had said was not related to the disease.

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago. He grew up on the city’s South Side in the Woodlawn, and later, Englewood neighborhoods.