History Made Every Day™

Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his wisecracking dummy Charlie McCarthy debut on Rudy Vallee's popular radio show. Despite the incongruity of a ventriloquist act on radio, Bergen became a hit radio star with his own show for more than 20 years.

Edgar Bergen was born in Chicago in 1903, the son of Swedish immigrants. At age 11, he sent away for a book of magic tricks called The Wizard's Manual and learned to project his voice. He was soon amusing and irritating parents and teachers with his talents. As a teenager, he had a local bartender carve a dummy for him out of pine-he named the dummy Charlie McCarthy, partly after the bartender, whose last name was Mac.

Bergen enrolled at Northwestern University as a premed student, where he earned his tuition by entertaining with Charlie at parties. He dropped out, though, to pursue a vaudeville career, which culminated with a show at the Palace Theater in New York-the top vaudeville theater in the country. But radio and movies soon made vaudeville obsolete, and Bergen began working nightclubs.

In 1936, radio host Rudy Vallee heard Bergen and McCarthy at a party and invited them on the show. The act was a hit, and Vallee engaged Bergen for three months on the show. By 1937, Bergen had a regular show, which ran under different names and sponsors until 1955.

In 1945, Bergen married and had a daughter, Candice, who became a successful movie and TV actress. She also wrote a memoir, Knock Wood, about growing up as the "sister" of Charlie McCarthy.

After his radio show was canceled in 1955, Bergen remained a popular performer, making numerous guest appearances on TV shows. He announced his retirement in September 1978, saying he would donate Charlie to the Smithsonian. He gave his last performance in Las Vegas, at Caesar's Palace, on October 1, 1978, and died in his sleep that night.