American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen with two dummies (Charlie McCarthy in a tuxedo, and Mortimer Snerd), and his young daughter, Candice Bergen, approximately age four.
Candice had what she called the “weirdest” upbringing, as the only daughter of the world-renowned ventriloquist, who ultimately left her nothing n his will (though he did bequeath $10,000 to his favorite dummy).
Bergen told CBS News’ Jane Pauley in 2015 that her father had warned her about her beauty: “When I was, like, 10 years old he said, ‘You know, Candie, it’s the beautiful women who commit suicide. So you must develop your interest in photography, develop your interest in writing, because it’s the beautiful women who have nothing to fall back on.’
“So I never had any vanity about it, because I always saw it as being fatal, basically.”
Bergen took up modeling, photography and acting, appearing in her first movie role before she was 20.
