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| Charlie & W.C. |
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| ZaSu Pitts |
Bergen was born Edgar John Berggren in Chicago, Illinois one of five children, the youngest 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 4 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 returned to Chicago. He attended Lake View High School. After his father died when he 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. The famous ventriloquist Harry Lester was so impressed by Edgar 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. For college he attended Northwestern University where he was enrolled in the pre-med
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| Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen
and Mortimer Snerd |
program to please his mother. He 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
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| Don Ameche |
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. (SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bergen)
Uncle Dunkle and Donnie,Fractured Fables by Daws Butler, Vol. 1
By Joe Bevilacqua
Length: 4 hours
& 56 min.
READ the REVIEW
As heard on Sirius XM Radio and NPR stations!
Almost
five hours of family entertainment! A seal who can't balance? An
elephant who always forgets? A green cow who walks on her front feet?
These are just some of the wacky characters from the unique mind of Daws
Butler, the man who voiced most of the classic Hanna-Barbera
characters: Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, and
Snagglepuss, to name a few. Uncle Dunkle and Donnie is a collection of
imaginative, never-before-released cartoon scripts by Butler, who also
worked on Jay Ward's classic 1960s Fractured Fairy Tales and Aesop and
Sons animated cartoons. Daws Butler protégé Joe Bevilacqua performs 97
different characters in this production!
Uncle
Dunkle and Donnie was written by Daws Butler and Joe Bevilacqua, and
fully produced with sound effects and performed by Joe Bevilacqua, with
music written by Joe Bevilsvqua, performed by the Paul Salomone Trio,
Julian Baker and Joe Gatto.
|
Uncle Dunkle and Donnie 2:
More Fractured Fables from the Voice of Yogi Bear!
Vol. 2
UNABRIDGED
by Daws Butler , Pedro Pablo Sacristan Narrated by Daws Butler, Joe Bevilacqua
Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins
This
second collection of fractured fables are from the unique mind of Daws
Butler, the man who voiced most of the classic Hanna-Barbera characters:
Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, and Snagglepuss, to
name a few. Uncle Dunkle and Donnie is a collection of imaginative,
cartoon scripts by Butler, who also worked on Jay Ward's classic 1960s
Fractured Fairy Tales and Aesop and Sons animated cartoons.
|
Uncle Dunkle and Donnie
Vol. 3:
The Master’s Tapes
UNABRIDGED
By: Daws Butler and Joe Bevilacqua
Performed by Daws Butler
Length: 3.2 hrs
A
must-have for collectors, these recently discovered master reels of
cartoon-voice legend Daws Butler performing all the voices for
twenty-one of his hilarious fractured fairy tales have been digitally
remastered by Butler protégé Joe Bevilacqua.
FROM THE SCRIPT BOOK:
Uncle Dunkle and Donnie
© 2014 by Joe Bevilacqua, Waterlogg Productions |
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