| Comedy - Bergen and McCarthy | ||||
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Volume Number: 1
Episode Count: 62 Size of Volume: 239 MB Price: $3.99 Catalog # C-BMAC-1 Show / Hide Description
On his way home from school one day, the young lad named Edgar Bergen tested a newly-found gift by hailing another boy, who exclaimed, "Who was that calling me, anyhow?" Bergen was aware of his talent, and continued to practice his vocal tricks. He progressed so well that his mother was forever answering the door in response to pleas of old men who begged to be let in, only to discover that it was Bergen himself. When once a man stalked Bergen’s mother, it was his vocal talent through the other side of the door that scared her admirer away. Before long, Edgar’s interests had extended to slight of hand paraphernalia, and spent much of his small savings on magic tricks. One of his purchases was a twenty-five cent book on ventriloquism, with which he set about developing his talent for "voice diffusion."
Young Bergen went on to high school, attending the Lane Technical and Lakeview Schools. It was there that Charlie McCarthy was born. The inspiration for the impish dummy was a tough Irish newsboy, and the head was carved in white pine by a carpenter named Theodore Mack, who followed young Bergen’s specifications. In gratitude, Bergen added a Celtic suffix to the carpenter’s name – and Charlie McCarthy was christened. While Charlie’s head cost about thirty-five dollars, Bergen himself made the body. The newly whittled brash youth was an immediate success, delighting Bergen’s classmates and teachers. The dummy, incidentally, once helped his master pass an important history course by completely charming the teacher. With the eclipse of vaudeville, in the early thirties Bergen polished his routine for nightclubs. He was very successful with an act he called "The Operation," in which he played the doctor. Charlie was the patient and a nurse was in attendance. (Edgar Bergen reprised this act in the beginning of RKO Studio’s 1941 movie Look Who’s Laughing.) This act was based on reality: Bergen had recently undergone an operation – he had argued with the doctors and experienced the usual qualms of a patient – all of which he transformed into a satirical comedy. But Bergen’s chance of fame came one night in 1936, on the invitation of Elsa Maxwell. He performed at a party where one of the guests, Noel Coward, congratulated Bergen on his fine dialogue. A week later, on December 16, Bergen made his first radio appearance on Rudy Vallee’s The Royal Gelatin Hour, for which he received the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars. That may not seem much by today’s standards, but in 1936 that was more than a month’s worth of wages. Five months later, in May of 1937, Chase and Sanborn began sponsoring The Chase and Sanborn Hour, starring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
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