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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