Bergen was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of five children and the younger of two sons of Swedish immigrants Nilla Svensdotter (née Osberg) and Johan Henriksson Berggren. He lived on a farm near Decatur, Michigan until he was four, when his family returned to Sweden, where he learned the language. He taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet called "The Wizard\'s Manual" when he was 11, after his family had returned to Chicago. He attended Lake View High School. After his father died, when Edgar was just 16, he went out to work as an apprentice accountant, a furnace stoke, a player-piano operator, and a projectionist in a silent-movie house. \n', '

Edgar would so impress the famous ventriloquist Harry Lester that he gave the teenager almost daily lessons for three months in the fundamentals of ventriloquism. In the fall of 1919, Edgar paid Chicago woodcarver Theodore Mack $36 to sculpt a likeness of a rascally red-headed Irish newspaperboy he knew. The head went on a dummy named Charlie McCarthy, which became Bergen\'s lifelong sidekick. He had created the body himself, using a nine-inch length of broomstick for the backbone, and rubber bands and cords to control the lower jaw mechanism of the mouth.\n', '

For college, he attended Northwestern University, where he enrolled in the pre-med program to please his mother. He later switched to Speech & Drama, but never completed his degree. He gave his first public performance at Waveland Avenue Congregational Church located on the northeast corner of Waveland and Janssen. He lived across the street from the church. In 1965, he gave the church a generous contribution, a thoughtful letter, and a photograph of himself which had been requested by the minister and was displayed in the church\'s assembly room which was dedicated to Bergen. He cut out an "R" and a "G" from his family name and went from Berggren to Bergen on the showbills. Between June 1922 and August 1925, he performed every summer on the professional Chautauqua circuit and at the Lyceum theater in Chicago. Bergen had an interest in aviation, becoming a private pilot.\n', '

Return to Charlie McCarthy Autograph Profile