Famous ventriloquist left his daughter nothing when he died — he bequeathed his puppet a fortune

In 1937, one of the most popular names in American radio stood just 90 centimetres tall and was made of wood and plastic.

Ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy performed alongside Frank Sinatra, Groucho Marx, Liberace and the Muppets over a career spanning almost five decades.

His “sister” Candice would become an award-winning actress who appeared in the sitcom Murphy Brown and movies including Miss Congeniality.

Bringing Charlie to life was Edgar Bergen, a man described by puppetry organisation UNIMA as a performer who “rose to national stature” and left audiences “spellbound”.

On what would have been his 101st birthday, we take a look back at the — sometimes controversial — life of America’s “quintessential ventriloquist”.

Out of a woodworking shop, a star is born

Born in Chicago to Swedish parents, Bergen was just 19 years old when he bought a ventriloquist dummy from a woodworking shop for $US35, according to UNIMA. 

That would amount to about $US642 ($990) in today’s money. 

The puppet, whose “immediate ancestor was a North Michigan pine tree” quipped the New York Times, was made of wood and plastic, including human hair and glass eyes. 

The hat was crafted from cardboard and fur. The shoes, leather. 

Though Bergen started performing on the vaudeville circuit around the US, his act ultimately caught the attention of radio producers. 

On May 9, 1937, Bergen’s The Chase & Sanborn Hour — named for its coffee company sponsor — hit the airwaves and became a major success.

“A blockhead who wears three-and-a-half size hats and 2AAA shoes has built up a radio following of millions of Americans since last January,” declared a New York Times article in November, 1937. 

“His name is a household word, his wisecracks are widely quoted by table wits and in current newspapers; his habits and manners are subjects for learned editorial comment. 

In December 1937, Baltimore’s Evening Sun declared Bergen had gone from earning $270 a week to $14,000 a week in just 18 months. 

Or, to put it in today’s currency, the equivalent of about $US299,849 ($462,569) a week. 

That following year Bergen was given an honorary Oscar award, made entirely of wood, for creating Charlie.

Bergen’s cast of characters widened over the years, including the hapless Mortimer Snerd and old woman Effie Klinker. 

But it was Charlie who reigned supreme. 

‘Immoral, obscene, and filthy’: The Mae West incident

The popularity of Charlie — and his creator — did not make him immune to controversy and public outrage.

Dubbed “America’s No. 1 Bad Boy” in newspaper reports at the time, in late 1937 Charlie was on a collision course with movie star Mae West. 

West, already in her 40s at the time, had her own reputation as a self-described “twentieth century sex goddess” by the time she appeared on The Chase & Sandborn Hour on December 12. 

The 30-minute segment was not a success. 

The scripts made several risqué references, including West referring to Charlie McCarthy as “all wood and a yard long”. 

Another segment depicted West and another actor as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, cheering about “forbidden fruits”. 

According to historian John Dunning, the phone lines at NBC erupted with people calling to complain. 

“Ministers railed. Chase and Sanborn customers threatened to boycott the product. 

“The Federal Communications Commission got involved. A transcription of the show was demanded and supplied. The FCC also demanded a a copy of the network’s contract with the sponsor and the call letters of all stations that had carried the show. 

“The threat was implicit.”

The reaction in newspapers at the time was no kinder. 

“Once again Mae West finds herself the storm centre of the amusement world,” penned The New York Times a week later. 

“An editorial … described the broadcast as ‘smutty suggestiveness and horrible blasphemy’.

“It has been hinted for months that the Legion of Decency was piqued by suggestiveness emanating increasingly from variously sponsored programs, but the Mae West ‘incident’ is the first to evoke public protest from the clergy.” 

West would be banned from NBC Radio — the broadcaster claimed it was not the scripts, but her inflection which had made the jokes so suggestive. 

Charlie remained on the air. 

‘Farewell to show business’ 

By the end of his career, Bergen had appeared in almost two dozen different movies and been given three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Bergen’s final film appearance was a guest role — alongside Charlie — in The Muppets Movie. 

He had booked a two-week series of Las Vegas shows through to October 11, part of a “Farewell to Show Business” retirement set according to news reports announcing his death. 

The show opened on September 27 at Caesar’s Palace. 

He passed away in his sleep on September 30, 1978. 

‘The curse of having a wooden brother’ 

As her father became a household name, his daughter Candice Bergen was a little girl growing up under “the curse of having a wooden brother”, she would later tell Vanity Fair. 

The actress — whose role in CBS sitcom Murphy Brown would later earn her five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes — started her life in the public eye as “Charlie’s little sister”.

“My dad and I would spend Sunday mornings in the breakfast room. Me and my dad: It was our time together and usually it was just the two of us,” Candice Bergen wrote in her 1985 autobiography, Knock Wood.

“And occasionally Charlie.

“Life was good … and there we were, in our secret Scandinavia, just like a perfect couple, you know, unless Charlie or someone was there.

“When Charlie was there, my dad would sit him on one knee and me on the other … and when he squeezed my neck, I’d move my mouth, and when he squeezed Charlie’s neck, he’d move his.

The dummy “dominated” Ms Bergen’s childhood, she would write in a later memoir.

After his death, Ms Bergen and her mother sat together in the family living room and listened to a lawyer read the entertainer’s will. 

“I … bequeath to the Actors Fund of America the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars [sic] to be held as a separate fund, to be known forever as ‘The Charlie McCarthy Fund’,” he wrote, according to Ms Bergen’s 2015 book.

The money, by Bergen’s “sincere wish”, was to be spent to fund “charitable performances of ventriloquism at orphanages … and other such similar institutes for destitute and handicapped children”.

The donation was vital to him because of its association with Charlie, “who has been my constant companion and who has taken on the character of a real person and from whom I have never been separated even for a day.”

For Candice, the message was clear.

“Part of me thinks his withholding of money was his way of preparing me, giving me a sort of armour.

“But the rest of me is still baffled.”

Edgar Bergen was buried with his parents in Inglewood Park Cemetery, California. 

The original Charlie now resides in a covered case at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

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