Despite the fact that 66 percent of its stars died suddenly and tragically this weekend, Soul Men, starring Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes and Samuel L Jackson, will be released (albeit possibly later than planned).

Isaac Hayes — singer, songwriter, composer, actor, etc. — died Sunday after collapsing near his treadmill in his Memphis, Tenn., home. He was 65. Hayes had just finished working on a movie called Soul Man, which starred Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac, who also just died. Here's Hayes performing his infamous Shaft theme song in 1973. That's Jesse Jackson making the introduction, in case you were wondering.

Actor and comedian Bernie Mac died of complications due to pneumonia this morning. He was 50-years old.

In addition to pneumonia, the Chicago-native suffered from a sarcoidosis, a chronic inflammatory lung disease. "When I got the call this morning, it was just devastating news," said Chicago Sun-Times columnist Stella Foster. "Let's face it: Bernie Mac was one of a kind. He was the best of the best in terms of giving you a good laugh." [CNN]

Former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms once said that he "did not come to Washington to win a popularity contest." That's a good thing, because Helms, who died Friday at the age of 86, was never in the running for Most Popular Senator. Even in his obituaries, reporters are having a hard time finding nice things to say about a guy who was an unabashed bigot and a symbol of the sort of southern racism that has been a major pock on the history of the United States. Frequently when someone of Helms' renown dies, we say, "it's the end of an era." We're talking about a man who once said that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress." If his death really does mark the end of an era, then we should all thank our lucky stars.

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R.I.P. Tim Russert "Tim Russert, NBC journalist and political heavyweight host of "Meet the Press," has died after collapsing at NBC's Washington news bureau, a source said. He was 58 years old." [NYP]

Not to make this an all-around gloomy morning (mourning?), but Bo Diddly, an American music legend, also passed away yesterday at the age of 79. Here he is performing in all of his glory on a '60s television show.

Famed blues guitarist and vocalist Bo Diddly died of heart failure today at the age of 79. Diddley was born Ellas Bates McDaniel in McComb, Mississippi, but he died at his home in Florida, surrounded by loved ones.

RIP YSL French designer Yves Saint Laurent, one of the most influential people in fashion, died in Paris yesterday after slipping into a coma last week. He was 71. [People]

XZIBIT'S SAD NEWS Xzibit's newborn son, who was born prematurely on May 15th, died earlier this week when his lungs gave out. On his personal blog, Xzibit wrote, "This week was extremely difficult for him because his lungs were not strong enough to handle regular oxygen on his own. Xavier passed away this morning at 3:30 a.m. and I must tell you this, it is unnatural for a parent to bury a child. I am telling you this because of the same reason I tell you when I'm having great times, life is too short to be fake. Hold on to your kids if you have them, protect them and show them you love them everyday you wake up and see them, don't take a second you get to hug them, teach them and care for them for granted. You can have all the material wealth in the universe but it is NOTHING compared to having your family."

Zelma Henderson was a beautician who lived in Topeka, Kansas, her entire life. When she died Tuesday at 88 of pancreatic cancer, so did the last living plaintiff in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case.

Henderson joined the case when the NAACP asked 13 local black parents (including Oliver Brown), whose children were being bused to an all-black school across town, to join the case. The rest is history. “None of us knew that this case would be so important and come to the magnitude it has,” Henderson told the Dallas Morning News in 1994. “What little bit I did, I feel I helped the whole nation.”

R.I.P. Orish Grinstead, one of the founding members of the Las Vegas-based R&B group, 702, died Sunday of kidney failure. She was just 27. [RG101]

Aime Cesaire, the famous poet, politician, and anti-colonialist from Martinique, died yesterday at the age of 94. Cesaire was the founder of the negritude movement, which is similar in message to what we know as "black pride" and encouraged the development of a black consciousness and black identity under colonial rule.

His poems expressed the degradation of black people in the Caribbean and describe the rediscovery of an African sense of self. In his "Discourse on Colonialism", first published in 1950, Cesaire compared the relationship between the coloniser and colonised with the Nazis and their victims.

Cesaire was also mayor of Fort-de-France for nearly half a century. [Reuters]

More bad luck for the LeVerts: Just under a year and a half after Gerald LeVert died at age 40 of a heart attack, his brother Sean, of "Casanova" fame, died yesterday. Sean was in a Cleveland jail for owing $80,000 in child support when he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where he later died. He was 39. Autopsy results pending. [TMZ]