When we hear about a so-called overnight success, it is easy to assume that it happens to an act which came out of nowhere. On the evening of December 17, 1936, Edgar Bergen was a relative nobody, standing in the NBC Studios in New York City, waiting for his introduction to appear on Rudy Vallee's The Royal Gelatin Hour. In just a few weeks, he will become one of the biggest things on radio, in fact in all of show business, but right now he is just another vaudevillian who is appearing on an otherwise routine episode of the popular variety show.
On the lineup for that night's show includes Cornelia Otis Skinner giving a monolog about Christmas, Douglas Montgomery and Shirley Booth present a sketch entitled "Three Diamond Bid", and Rudy interviews successful party-planner Elsa Maxwell. Edgar and Charlie McCarthy are not the evening's only firsts, musician "Sleepy" Hall will introduce the world to the wonders of the electric banjo. It is somehow refreshing to note that Edgar and Charlie are better remembered than the electric guitar. Rudy will introduce them after the mid-show break, actually a fairly important spot on the show, which indicates Vallee's confidence in the act.
Rudy first saw Edgar perform at a party given by Miss Maxwell. Elsa had seen the act at the swanky Rainbow Room and thought he would be perfect for the party. The Swedish boy from Chicago had come a long way to get to the Rainbow Room. Edgar John Bergren, born February 16, 1903, was the youngest son of immigrants Nilla and Johan Berggren. When he was four, the family moved to Sweden for a short time, where he picked up the language. They returned to Chicago when he was eleven, and Edgar picked up a pamphlet called The Wizard's Manual which included basic ventriloquism lessons. After Edgar's father died when he was sixteen, he took up various jobs to help the family, including as apprentice accountant, shoveling coal, pumping a player piano, and running the projector in a silent movie house. He met and impressed ventriloquist Harry Lester who spent three months giving Edgar lessons in ventriloquism.
When he was ready to strike out on his own, Edgar paid a local wood carver $36 to carve a head in the likeness of an Irish newspaper boy he knew named Charlie McCarthy. Edgar built the body himself, using a broomstick for a spine, rubber bands to control the mouth, and dressed his new companion in a ragged sweater and a cloth cap. As Edgar began getting bookings in vaudeville, he dropped one of the R's from Bergren to make the name easier for theater announcers to say. Charlie was a smart-mouthed street urchin, and the act was pretty conventional, but Edgar had a genius for adapting to his surroundings.
Bergen and McCarthy made the rounds of vaudeville for nearly 15 years before landing the engagement at the Rainbow Room. They had been on the Chautauqua circuit and even appeared in a few one-reel comedies from the Vitaphone studios, but the Rainbow Room was a definite step up. Located at the top of the RCA building, the Rainbow was the art-deco elegance that most people only saw in the movies brought to life. It was no place for a street urchin in a flea-bitten sweater and cloth cap, no matter how insolent he could be. Bergen gave Charlie a new outfit, a striking tuxedo with silk top hat, then completed the ensemble with a monocle like that worn by Esky, the cartoon mascot of Esquire magazine.
Along with his swanky duds, Charlie had some sophisticated and rather adult material. Bergen was no run of the mill voice thrower, his co star engaged and entranced his audience with a unique personality. He was still a little boy, but not the sort of rascal who would steal from your cookie jar. Charlie was more the sort who would steal from your liquor cabinet and pinch your daughter's behind!
When Elsa Maxwell saw Edgar and Charlie at the Rainbow Room, she knew that she had found just the entertainer she needed for a party she was hosting. The guest of honor was English playwright Noel Coward, the first ambassador "cool Britannia", who would definitely appreciate Charlie's insouciance. Whether or not Coward laughed at Charlie's antics is not recorded, but another guest at the party was more than taken with Edgar and Charlie's act, taken enough to put them on Rudy Vallee's top-rated show.
Vallee was not overly enthused about ventriloquists. After all, he was a singer and band leader, showbiz royalty! Ventriloquists were novelty acts. Everyone, including Vallee, knew that there was no place on radio for a ventriloquist. Just a few months before, on the August 16, 1936, edition of The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, Rudy's guest was ventriloquist Frank Gabby. Rudy played the part of Gabby's dummy after explaining "ventriloquism hardly makes good radio."
That was probably on Vallee's mind on December 17, when he introduced Edgar. He did mention that the success of the act depended more upon the material than the "believe it or not nature of his delivery." Although both voices in the routine were "owned and operated by just one man", to the radio audience they were two distinct personalities, and Charlie's was a personality they couldn't get enough of.
Overnight success usually takes a lot longer than we imagine. Edgar and Charlie were the hit of the December 17, 1936, program, and they were so popular that Vallee wanted to sign them for the rest of the season, 13 more shows. Unfortunately, Bergen only had three weeks' worth of material prepared. The sponsor made it worth his trouble to develop more material by offering him the chance to headline their new program, The Chase and Sanborn Hour. The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show played every week in some form on NBC until the end of 1948. In October 1949, they were back on the air with CBS until 1956, when it was canceled in part because of competition from television.
In 1971, Bergen appeared as Grandpa Walton in the TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. The story takes place over Christmas Eve, 1933. At one point in the story, the family gathers around the radio as Grandpa tunes in The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show, which would not premier for four more years! The movie became the pilot for The Waltons, but the part of Grandpa was played by Will Geer.
Edgar Bergen, along with Jack Benny, Frank Sinatra, Gale Storm, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby, is among the thirty-three people who have been honored with three Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bergen's Stars are at 6425 Hollywood Blvd for Television, 6766 Hollywood Blvd for Motion Pictures, and 6801 Hollywood Blvd for Radio.
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