Revealing Facts of Hollywood Life

The Miami News – Jan 23, 1938     

From Edgar Bergen—

Revealing Facts of Hollywood Life

To Charlie McCarthy

Now that Casanova McCarthy has become a film star and has met Mae West on his Sunday night NBC program, his long-suffering better half decides it is time to take him aside and tell him a thing or two. The lecture and the outcome are recorded here, along with a photographic record of what happened when they visited Dorothy Lamour at Paramount studios.

MY DEAR CHARLIE: It has been a long time since my last opportunity to talk to you like a father. Remember the night in the rainbow room of Radio City over a year ago when you bet Rudy Vallee you’d take that blond chorus girl home after the show?

I had to pay that bet for you, Charlie, and you promised never to look at a woman again after I took you aside in the cloak room and impressed on your tender young nature some of the facts of life.

“Ah, please stop, Mr. Bergen,” you cried in shame, “No one ever told me that blonds were fickle. I shall never look at a blond a second time, Mr. Bergen. Once is enough, don’t you think?”

I was proud of your repentance, Charlie, because it indicated what sterling traits of character you possessed. You gave promise of becoming a real man. And then fame came to us and we answered the siren call of Hollywood.

YOU looked so handsome in your flying beret as we left New York and I recalled how innocent you were the night in December, 1936, when we first appeared on the radio with Mr. Vallee from Radio City.

“Beware, Charles,” I said, “we are about to taste some of fame’s heady nectar!”

“Why, I didn’t do it, Mr. Bergen,” was your innocent answer. “I only tried to, Vallee necked her.”

“Fame,” I continued, “is a very fickle mistress.”

“Is she a blond, too?” you asked.

“Fame, Charlie,” I admonished you, “is neither a blond nor a brunet.”

“Well,” you said, “I prefer to beware of redheads, anyway.”

I should have had an inkling then, Charlie, of you fondness for beautiful women. Alas, I should never have brought you to Hollywood. From the moment you stepped from the plane at Burbank you have never been the same.

“Whoopee, Hollywood, here I come!” you shouted as you threw your arms around the hostess so violently she to call for assistance.

AT FIRST you would only invite the girls for a sip of pink lemonade. Then, as the insidious joy of conquest brought a strange gleam into your eye, you began to invite them to the house to look at your magic lantern. When I remonstrated and finally ordered you to stop, you began holding secret trysts.

“Go away, Bergen, and tuck your head into a nightcap,” you told me insolently the night I found you parked outside the house with that dancer. “You’re getting old, Bergen.”

AT FIRST you would only invite the girls for a sip of pink lemonade. Then, as the insidious joy of conquest brought a strange gleam into your eye, you began to invite them to the house to look at you magic lantern. When I remonstrated and finally ordered you to stop, you began holding secret trysts.

“Go away, Bergen, and tuck your head into a nightcap,” you told me insolently the night I found you parked outside the house with that dancer. “You’re getting old, Bergen.”

At first you were satisfied to remain true to Dorothy Lamour. Even when Carole Lombard made love to you at first you were still strong enough to resist and cry for assistance. But more and more you have begun to welcome the advances of Hollywood stars. You have even permitted yourself to be photographed with them in most compromising poses.

When we opened Santa Claus lane together on Hollywood blvd. and role with Santa Claus in the reindeer sleigh, you brought a blush of embarrassment to my cheek with your flippancy.

“What can I bring you for Christmas, Charlie?” asked Santa.

“You double-crossed me last year,” you said, right in front of 300,000 people who heard you through loud-speakers.When Santa Claus asked all the little boys and girls in the crowd to write to him, you must have disillusioned hundreds of them when you flipped:

“Yea, all the little boys write to Santa but all the girls better write to me.”

THE most precious things in life, Charlie, are not things that we can touch and see. It’s more important to remain true to yourself, to be brave and strong and honest than to make a fortune, and then squander it on women of the world and undermine your health in dissolute living. I told you that once before when you asked for a second helping of pink lemonade at the Trocadero.

“But didn’t you tell me, Mr. Bergen, that a temptation once conquered never returns?” you said.

“Indeed I did, Charlie.”

“I’m so full of lemonade that I’m tempted never to look another glass of it in the face, Mr. Bergen. You’d want me to conquer that temptation, wouldn’t you?” you replied.

YOU’RE a big star now, Charlie. They’re even calling you the No. 1 celebrity in Hollywood after that Santa Claus lane parade. But you must change your ways if you don’t wish the sweet wine of success to change to the bitterness of ashes. I don’t want to live to hear you say, “Woe is me, Mr. Bergen, if you had only taught me how to stay out of pitfalls that come with fame.”

It isn’t too late for you to turn back; remember what I’ve done for you and ask my forgiveness, Charlie. Weak as you are, I still love you better than Elmer. You wouldn’t want Elmer to replace you in my affection, would you, Charlie?

You don’t particularly like Elmer, I know. You look down on him because he comes from Keokuk and hasn’t any of your refinement. But you forget that Elmer has character. His head isn’t so easily turned by a skirt. I told you that once.

“Can I help it if you made his head harder to turn?” you replied.

I HAVE no desire to preach to you, Charlie. I want you to understand what sort of a man you can become if you retire early and arise refreshed at an early hour the next morning. I know you once told me you’d rather yawn than be yawned at, but you won’t always think that way if you remain true to only one love and turn a deaf ear to the temptations of a world that admires you when you are riding the crest and laughs in scorn when you fall into the trough of defeat.

Ideals, Charlie, are like the polar star guiding people through the vicissitudes of life. You know what “vicissitudes” means. You once asked: “‘Vicissitude’ means you order a hamburger instead of a T-bone, doesn’t it, Mr. Bergen?”

I want you to remember, Charlie, who brought you into the world, who guided your early faltering footsteps in the days we played the tank towns, ate hamburgers and slept on benches in railroad stations. If I weren’t at your side every moment, what would you do without me, Charlie?

Affectionately yours.

                                                                     EDGARBERGEN.

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DEAR BERGEN: What would I do without you around? Why don’t you try it some time and see?  Whoopee!!!!!!

Yours as ever.

CHARLIE (CASANOVA) McCARTHY.