Edgar
Bergen received a special wooden Oscar with a movable jaw
in 1937 for the creation of Charlie McCarthy. In his acceptance speech,
Charlie said "Carved out of wood! A bit of sarcasm, I suppose."
Bergen
was a peculiar choice for Oscar recognition, having
appeared in only thirteen undistinguished short films when he
won his award, although he was a popular figure on radio where
Charlie would battle with his nemesis W.C. Fields. The
ventriloquist made his feature film debut in The Goldwyn Follies the year he won the Oscar, and would go on to make appearances
in a handful of mediocre films (most memorably opposite Fields
in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man) before finally determining
that film wasn't really his medium and concentrating on his
successful career in radio, nightclubs and television.
His daughter Candice Bergen, probably best known for starring
in the popular television series Murphy Brown, was nominated for the
Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1979 for the comedy Starting Over, losing to Meryl Streep
in Kramer vs. Kramer. |
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