The Actor With Good Taste Who Didn't Taste Good

As a child member of the Yiddish Art Troupe performing in “Jacques Bergson” at Broadway’s 49th Street Theatre, his performance was called “sympathetic and appealing.” That was in October 1936. The same description might have been applied to a series of TV commercials he starred in 25 years later.

The young actor was Herschel Bernardi.

I first remember seeing him on the CBS sitcom Arnie in 1970. I could take it or leave it. I left it by the second season, despite Charles Nelson Reilley added to the cast and a theme change.

However, I unknowingly had heard Bernardi’s voice before then. In 1961, he was cast by the Leo Burnett ad agency to play a new cartoon character in commercials—Charlie the Tuna.

Contrast that not only with Arnie but his dramatic roles on stage in “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Zorba,” both of which resulted in Tony nominations. He had a multi-faceted career.

This wire story appeared in newspapers starting July 30, 1965.

Really a ‘Good Guy’
Who Speaks for Charley Tuna? Why, Herschel Bernardi, of Course
By JACK GAVER
NEW YORK (UPI) — One who doesn't scorn television and radio commercials is Herschel Bernardi, you can't blame him. He makes them.
And in case the name Herschel Bernardi doesn't mean anything to you, you all know the voice of Charley the Tuna and that ho-ho-ho, Jolly Green Giant bit. That's Bernardi.
"I get Charley the Tuna fan mail," Bernardi said, "although most of those who write don't know that I am the voice of Charley. They just get a kick out of the character and the way he talks. I imagine Charley must be one of the most popular of all television's characters in commercials.
Patterned After Friend
"I patterned Charley's voice after a friend of mine in Brooklyn. He is something of a beatnik in appearance but an educated man who can use the big words. But he uses them with a marked Brooklyn accent. Charley is a born loser with delusions of grandeur who never quite makes the grade to become one of this company's canned products."
The commercials—and Bernardi does many more, especially in the radio field for various products that are used only regionally—have done much to keep this actor, who has a wife and three children, solvent in the past years.
"Not that I haven't been able to make a living as an actor on the stage and in and the movies," Bernardi explained, "but I wouldn't have had the financial cushion to enable me to take a chance on a Broadway show this past season without the income from the commercials that I've built up over the past eight years."
Bernardi referred to his venture with the Broadway musical "Bajour," which closed late in the spring after a moderate run. It was one of those entertaining shows that didn't quite make it financially.
Was Good Exposure
"I'm glad I did it," Bernardi said. "It was good exposure for me, and it wasn't a show to be ashamed of. I'll benefit from it in the long run.
"But for a Hollywood-based actor, especially if he has a family, to take several months out of his career to do a Broadway show that may close the same week it opens is a tremendous gamble. You really have to want to do it very badly, and you have to be able to afford to do it. The commercials made it possible for me."
Bernardi's commercial work is only with the voice.
"I don't think an actor—well, at least, it isn't right for me—should have his face identified without a product," Bernardi said. "If nothing else, this, to be quite crass about it, restricts your work in this field. If you supply only voices for various animated characters, the field is unlimited."
Bernardi is best known to the television public in his own right as the understanding, efficient police lieutenant, Jacoby, in the highly popular "Peter Gunn" series of a few seasons back.
Was Typecast
"I'm still getting an income from the series, which continues to play in various parts of the world," Bernardi said. "Funny thing is that my success as that character darned near ruined me for a while in getting movie and other television work.
"You see, when I first went to Hollywood, with this rough-hewn face of mine, I was cast in a number of films as a gangster or some other sort of ‘heavy.’ Then the 'Peter Gunn' series got me out of that rut, and I became indelibly stamped as an understanding, bright and honest cop. The result was that, when the series was over and I needed some movie roles and good dirty ones were being cast, no one would think of me. I had acquired the 'good guy' image.
"I finally broke that spell by persuading the producer for the 'Bonanza' television series to cast me in an episode as a completely repulsive heavy, and things have been back in balance ever since." Uprooted from their West Coast home by "Bajour," the Bernardis are going to stay in the East for a while. There are a couple of plays being offered Bernardi, and he can turn out his budget-balancing commercials here as well as in Hollywood.

Bernardi’s Charlie was given a small sidekick fish, voiced by Henry Corden (I don’t know who the original announcer was, but Danny Dark is heard on some commercials in the ’70s). A number of black and white Starkist spots can be found on-line and there’s one where Charlie sounds more like Lennie Weinrib than Bernardi. There could be a reason, as explained in this Newspaper Enterprise Association column of Sept. 15, 1970.

Bernardi Learns Job Isn’t Matter Of Life And Death
By DICK KLEINER
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) — "I have learned, through life and death," says Herschel Bernardi, "that my job isn't a matter of life and death."
For many actors and actresses, the career is everything. There is no life, for this type, outside their career. Herschel Bernardi, today, represents the other extreme. He'll do his job, of course, and do it well, but it is not all important.

What happened was this:
"After five solid years on Broadway—I had done 'Fiddler on the Roof’ and ‘Zorba'—I developed a tumor in my throat last year. That's why Zorba' closed.
Lab Closed
“Well, I had the tumor removed. The operation was on a Friday morning and the lab doing the biopsy was closed Friday afternoon, so I didn’t find out until Monday morning that the tumor was benign.
"Even so, I had to go away. I couldn't talk for months. I went to Rancho LaPuerta, in Tecate, Mexico. And I sat and I meditated. You've been there? Then you know that mountain in back of the place?
"Well, I'd go up that mountain and sit and think for hours on end. And I came to the conclusion that life wasn't all show business. I came to the conclusion that you have to look at life with the third eye, an outward eye that takes in everything."
Expensive Sitting
For a man with a family to support, it gets expensive just sitting and meditating on a Mexican mountain for months and months.
When he came down from the mountain, Herschel Bernardi says, he was broke.
"So I was amenable to doing a TV series. In fact, amenable is hardly the word. My agent said I HAD to do a TV series. Fortunately, one came along that I liked very much."
That one was Arnie, premiering Saturday night on CBS. He says he still likes it and has high hopes for its success.
Voice Changed
Bernardi used to make a good living, besides acting, in doing voice overs, commercial spots for TV. But, since his operation, his voice has changed.
"Maybe changed isn't exactly right," he says. "Let's say my control of my voice is less than it was. I did an album recently and I had to do several takes because I couldn't control my voice too well. I can't smoke, of course, but otherwise I'm fine."
He looks contented as well as physically healthy. There's that calmness in his eyes, the calmness that bespeaks a man who knows what constitutes life and death—and what doesn't.

Bernardi’s Charlie continued to get rejected by Starkist. Bernardi himself continued to get acclaimed by audiences and critics as he resumed his dramatic stage work. He died of a heart attack on May 9, 1986 at the age of 62.