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Snapshot by Valerie Yaros Elegant Edgar Bergen (1903-1978) and his alter ego, Charlie McCarthy, right. Crafted in 1922, the ventriloquist dummy is now in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. Above, at the Screen Actors Guild's annual meeting at the Hollywood Palladium, Bergen's son Kris and widow, Frances, accept Bergen's posthumous Life Achievement Award, March 11, 1979. EDGAR BERGEN WAS NO 'DUMMY' T he Screen Actors Guild Awards Committee was stunned — Edgar Bergen, whom they had selected just days before to receive the Guild's Annual Award, was dead. Bergen was a legendary ventriloquist, actor of stage, film, radio and television, and the first president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He had announced his retirement on Sept. 21, 1978, and the Awards Committee unanimously chose him for the honor now known as the Life Achievement Award. Screen Actor magazine explained, "The list of charitable organizations to which he constantly contributed fills pages. The list of free performances he gave for charities fills still more pages. If he was available, he seldom said no to anyone who asked him to help raise funds for a worthy cause." Bergen was in the midst of an exciting series of live farewell appearances when death took him in his sleep on the afternoon of Sept. 30, 1978 at Caesar's Palace hotel in Las Vegas, hours before a performance. Screen Actor magazine noted that Bergen was then "… enjoying one of the greatest successes of his career. He had been playing to not only standing, but jumping ovations. The day before his death he said to a friend about his opening, 'It was among the happiest days of my life.' His great fame began in radio. His first show on the airwaves had the biggest and most immediate rating of all time, 40 SAG-AFTRA Snapshot.indd 40 remaining No. 1 for six years and was rated among the first five for 20 years." In the summer of 1937, Bergen became charter member No. 11 of the newly created American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA) and was appointed to the first national board of directors. Bergen's wooden ventriloquist dummy and true alter ego, whom he named Charlie McCarthy, was so popular that on Oct. 11 of that year, the Screen Actors Guild Board of Directors unanimously voted McCarthy an honorary membership in the Guild because "… his guardian and sponsor is a Guild member, and taking into account the difficulty and trouble for the Guild office to collect his dues, or reprimand him owing to his well-known aggressive and ornery disposition …" The first issue of AFRA's national bulletin, Dec. 1, 1937, continued the masquerade of presenting McCarthy as a real person, describing the struggles of AFRA's Los Angeles Local President Carlton KaDell to convince the obstinate puppet to join the union, and noting Bergen's "extreme embarrassment" over the situation. Bergen's daughter, Candice Bergen, became a successful actor and star of the hit TV series Murphy Brown (1988-1998). She is currently co-producing a feature film based on her father's life, as seen through the eyes of Charlie McCarthy. | Summer 2013 | SAGAFTRA.org 8/28/13 12:48 PM