Editing Edgar Bergen (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy 1926.jpg|thumb|upright|Bergen and [[Charlie McCarthy (ventriloquist)|Charlie]] in 1926]]
Bergen was born in [[Chicago]], one of five children and the younger of two sons of [[Sweden|Swedish]] immigrants Nilla Svensdotter (née Osberg) and Johan Henriksson Berggren.<ref>{{cite web  |first=Tammy |last=Luce |url=http://home.comcast.net/~buff.flyer2/mccarthy/Bergen_bio_new.html |title=Edgar Bergen And The life that he lead |website=Home.comcast.net |date=1978-09-21 |access-date=2013-12-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018024043/http://home.comcast.net/~buff.flyer2/mccarthy/Bergen_bio_new.html |archive-date=2013-10-18 }}</ref> He lived on a farm near [[Decatur, Michigan]] until he was four, when his family returned to Sweden, where he learned the language. After his family had returned to Chicago, when he was eleven, he taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet called "The Wizard's Manual". He attended [[Lake View High School (Chicago, Illinois)|Lake View High School]]. After his father died, when Edgar was 16, he went out to work as an apprentice accountant, a furnace stoker, a player-piano operator, and a projectionist in a silent-movie house.

Edgar so impressed the famous ventriloquist [[Harry Lester (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 [[newspaper hawker|newspaper boy]] he knew. The head went on a [[Ventriloquism|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 enrolled in the pre-med program to please his mother. He later switched to speech and drama, but never completed his degree.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://exhibits.library.northwestern.edu/archives/exhibits/alumni/bergen.html |title=Edgar Bergen: Alumni Exhibit: Northwestern University Archives |date=September 17, 2000 |website=Northwestern Library Exhibits |access-date=2013-12-13 |archive-date=October 29, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121029182526/http://exhibits.library.northwestern.edu/archives/exhibits/alumni/bergen.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=AOPA Pilot |date=May 2014 |page=79 |title=A Plane-Crazy America}}</ref>