Information about Edgar Bergen

Charlie McCarthy redirects here, for the Irish hurling player see Charlie McCarthy (hurler).

Edgar Bergen
A scene from the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)
Birth name	Edgar John Bergren
Born	January 16 1903(1903--) Chicago, Illinois
Died	September 30 1978 (aged 75) Las Vegas, Nevada
Show	The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show

Edgar John Bergen (February 16 1903 – September 30 1978) was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.

Biography

Early life

Bergen was born Edgar John Bergren in Chicago, Illinois to a Swedish family and grew up in Decatur, Michigan. He taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet when he was 11. A few years later he commissioned Chicago woodcarver Theodore Mack to sculpt a likeness of a rascally Irish newspaperboy he knew. The head went on a puppet named Charlie McCarthy, who became Bergen's lifelong sidekick. At age 16, he came to Chicago, where he attended Lake View High School and worked at a silent movie house.

Radio

His first performances were in vaudeville and one-reel movie shorts, but his real success was on the radio. He and Charlie were seen at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noel Coward, who recommended them for an engagement at the famous Rainbow Room. It was there that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallee's program. The appearance was so successful that the next year they were given their own show. Under various sponsors, they were on the air from December 17, 1937 to July 1, 1956. The popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled many critics, then and now. However, it was Bergen's skill as an entertainer and vocal performer, and especially his characterization of Charlie, that carried the show over. Luckily, many of the shows have survived and are available for audiences today to experience the phenomenon firsthand. Bergen's success on radio was paralleled in the UK by Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews.

For the radio program, Bergen developed other characters, notably the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and the man-hungry Effie Klinker. The star, however, was Charlie, who was always presented as a child (albeit in top hat, cape, and monocle)—a debonair, girl-crazy, child-about-town. As a child, and a wooden one at that, Charlie could get away with double entendre that adult humans could not under broadcast standards of the day.

Charlie: "May I have a kiss good-bye?"

Dale Evans: "Well, I can't see any harm in that!"

Charlie: "Oh. I wish you could. A harmless kiss doesn't sound very thrilling."

Similar lines given to Mae West in a sketch on the show broadcast December 12, 1937, resulted in her 15-year broadcasting ban. "Charles, I remember our date and have the splinters to prove it."

Charlie's feud with W. C. Fields was a regular feature of the show.

W.C. Fields: "Well, Charlie McCarthy, the woodpecker's pinup boy."

W.C. Fields: "I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs, I toddled from room to room."

Charlie: "When was that? Last night?"

W.C. Fields: "Quiet, Wormwood, or I'll whittle you down to a coathanger."

W.C. Fields: "Tell me, Charles, is it true that your father was a gate-leg table?"

Charlie: "If it is, your father was under it."

W.C. Fields: "Why, you stunted spruce, I'll throw a japanese beetle on you."

Charlie: "Why, you bar-fly you, I'll stick a wick in your mouth, and use you for an alcohol lamp!"

Charlie: "Pink elephants take aspirin to get rid of W. C. Fields."

W.C. Fields: "Step out of the sun Charles. You may come unglued.

Charlie: "Mind if I stand in the shade of your Nose?"

Bergen was not the most technically skilled ventriloquist—Charlie McCarthy frequently twitted him for moving his lips—but Bergen's sense of comedic timing was superb, and he handled Charlie's snappy dialogue with aplomb. Bergen's wit in creating McCarthy's striking personality and that of his other characters was the making of the show. The fact that Bergen was widely popular for a ventriloquism act on radio (where the trick of "throwing his voice" was not visible) indicates that his appeal was primarily the personality he applied to his characters.

Bergen and McCarthy are sometimes credited with "saving the world" because, on the night of October 30, 1938 when Orson Welles performed his War of the Worlds radio play that panicked many listeners, most of the American public had instead tuned in to Bergen and McCarthy on another station and never heard Welles' play. Conversely, it has also been theorized that Bergen inadvertently contributed to the hysteria. When the musical portion of Bergen's show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, aired approximately 12 minutes into the show, many listeners switched stations and found the War of the Worlds presentation already underway, with a realistic sounding reporter detailing terrible events.

Other media

In addition to his work as a ventriloquist, Bergen was also an actor and comic strip creator. He appeared as the shy Norwegian suitor in I Remember Mama (1948). He also appeared in Captain China (1949) and Don't Make Waves (1965). He created the syndicated comic strip Mortimer & Charlie which ran in 1939.

Bergen and his alter-ego McCarthy appeared together with top billing in several films, including the Technicolor extravaganza The Goldwyn Follies (1938), opposite The Ritz Brothers. That year they also appeared in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man], with W. C. Fields. At the height of their popularity in 1938, Bergen was presented an Honorary Oscar (in the form of a wooden Oscar stauette) for his creation of Charlie McCarthy. Other film roles for the team include Look Who's Laughing (1941) and Here We Go Again (1942), both with Fibber McGee and Molly. Later Bergen and McCarthy were featured in Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and much later in The Muppet Movie (1979). Bergen died shortly after completing his scenes, marking it as Bergen's last appearance; the film was dedicated to him.

In addition to his work in radio and film, Bergen also made numerous appearances on television during his career. In a Thanksgiving special sponsored by Coca-Cola in 1950, the new character Podine Puffington was introduced. This saucy Southern belle was as tall as a real woman, in contrast to Bergen's other sit-on-the-knee sized characters. Bergen also hosted the television show Do You Trust Your Wife? in 1956, later to be replaced by Johnny Carson. Bergen continued to appear regularly on television in the 1960s. For example, he did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS TV program.

Bergen appeared as Grandpa Walton in the original The Waltons movie (1971). The part was played by Will Geer in the subsequent series. Throughout the run of The Waltons -- which took place in the late 1930s through the 1940s -- the voices of Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were sporadically heard from the Walton family's radio, as family members regularly tuned in that program.

Death

Edgar Bergen died of kidney disease in Las Vegas, Nevada, aged 75. He is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. He was elected to the Radio Hall of Fame in 1990, the same year that The Charlie McCarthy Show was selected as an honored program. It is said that Charlie McCarthy died along with Bergen: "Since retiring to the Smithsonian Institution in 1978, Charlie has uttered not one, single, solitary word." ^[1]

Personal life

Edgar Bergen met Frances Westerman (1922-2006) during a radio program when he was 39 and she was only 19. Noticing Westerman in the audience, Bergen asked to meet the young fashion model, who was known as Frances Westcott during her modeling career. The two were married on 28 June 1945 and they remained married until Bergen's death in 1978. They were the parents of actress Candice Bergen, whose first performances were on Bergen's radio show, and Kris Bergen. Frances Bergen died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on October 2, 2006, aged 84, from undisclosed causes (see [1]).

Trivia

• In 1940 Edgar Bergen was Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade.
• Bergen attended Northwestern University, but did not graduate. The school later gave him an honorary degree as "Master of Innuendo and Snappy Comeback." While there, he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.
• Bergen and his two sidekicks Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd appeared on Walt Disney's One Hour In Wonderland in 1950 with Kathryn Beaumont (the voice of Alice in Disney's 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland). This episode is featured on Disc Two of the Alice in Wonderland Special Edition.
• In 1955 Edgar was the honorary Grand Marshal of the Annual Great Oregon Steam-Up in Brooks Oregon, a yearly show which features steam traction engines.
• Edgar was the boyhood idol of famous puppeteer Jim Henson.
• Bergen penned the article on ventriloquism in the 1958 Encyclopedia Britannica.^[2]
• Charlie McCarthy now resides in a display case in the Smithsonian Institution, alongside Fonzie's leather jacket.^[3]
• Edgar and Charlie appear in a cameo in 1979's The Muppet Movie, and Muppet creator Jim Henson dedicated the film to Bergen, who passed away shortly before its release.

References in popular culture

• In Radio Days, young Joe's (Seth Green) Uncle Abe (Josh Mostel) and Aunt Ceil (Renee Lippin) have an argument over an unnamed Bergen's radio act; Abe is driven crazy by the thought of a ventriloquist over the radio ("How can you tell his lips aren't moving?!")
• A Charlie McCarthy doll figures into the storyline of The Rainmaker (1997), the film based on the John Grisham novel.
• An annoyed character in the movie Cabin Boy, says to Chris Elliot's character, "Get out of my face, you half-assed Edgar Bergen."
• In The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind, p. 213, it is said that "Cheney's nickname inside CIA was 'Edgar.' As in Bergen. The President would, by implication, be in the Charlie McCarthy role. This isn't fair, but it is at least half true."
• In The Waltons pilot special "", Mary Ellen, in a sarcastic response to one of her younger sisters if there is a Santa Claus, curtly replies "Sure there is. AND I'M CHARLIE McCARTHY!!" Coincidentally enough, McCarthy's partner, Edgar Bergen, was in that same TV film as Grandpa.
• Bill Cosby compared the students of special education to Mortimer Snerd in a monologue entitled "Special Class" from his 1966 album, Wonderfulness.
• Ed O'Neill's character Bill Jacks, in episode six of John From Cincinnati, refers to John Monad's behaviour as being a Charlie McCarthy imitation.
• In Little Tough Guys in Society, David Gorcey and Billy Benedict briefly do an act where they address each other as "Mr. Bergen" and "Charlie."

Listen to

• Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy radio shows (24 episodes)
• OTR Network Library: "Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy'' (six episodes)

Note

References

• Grams, Jr., Martin. "The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show: An Episode Guide and Brief History"
• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.
• Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs: The Charlie McCarthy Show
• Funni, Arthur. "The Radio Years of Bergen and McCarthy." Thesis. The Margaret Herrick Library. 2000.

External links

• "Charlie's Big Night" by Elizabeth McLeod
• Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in "At the Races" 1934
• Edgar Bergen at the Internet Movie Database
• Edgar Bergen at the Radio Hall of Fame
• Knock On Wood: An Insider's View of Belly Speaking

Persondata
NAME	Bergen, Edgar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bergren, Edgar John
SHORT DESCRIPTION	comedian, ventriloquist
DATE OF BIRTH	February 16, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH	Chicago, Illinois
DATE OF DEATH	September 30, 1978
PLACE OF DEATH	Las Vegas, Nevada