How A Snooty Rich Woman Helped Sara Berner

Radio actors in the Golden Age had to be versatile. That was one way to get steady employment. When you could only hear them and not see them, performers didn’t get typecast. Frank Nelson, Joe Kearns and Elliott Lewis were equally at home on comedy and dramatic programmes.

There were specialists, too, who could spout in different dialects, celebrity impersonators, animal noises or vocal effects.

Sara Berner mastered various accents and celebrities. It helped her land work on radio and in animated cartoons. Director Bob Clampett called Berner “an important voice artist at Warners” and “our female Mel Blanc.” Tex Avery’s recollection was Berner and other actors got $75 a session, with an extra $5 if they did more than one character.

Besides this, there were novelty records, too. Berner managed to attract enough attention that she was given a starring role on her own radio show in 1950-51, though it quickly fizzled. She also had personal and health problems in the ‘50s after marrying her ex-manager.

We’ve reprinted articles on her career before, but let’s give you a few more. This piece is from the Oregon Statesman of Feb. 26, 1937. Major Bowes had a radio amateur hour (later taken to television by his protégé, Ted Mack) which netted him a small mint. He hired his best contestants and put them in little troupes that travelled all over the U.S. to perform in theatres.

Bowes Unit Will Come Next Week
Sara Berner, Who Failed as Salesgirl, One of Stars in Troupe
She mimicked the customers in a department store. So the manager fired her.
But today Sara Berner, young brown-eyed, good-looking brunette, appears before thousands of persons, travels throughout America and makes more than five times the weekly salary she earned as a saleslady—by mimicking.
She entertains Salem theatre fans with Major Bowes all-girl unit which comes to the Capitol theatre for one day only on Friday, March 5.
Miss Berner studied drama two years at Tulsa University in Oklahoma, but family reverses forced her to quit college. Department store salesgirl . . . fired for mimicking . . . New York . . . Job in department store . . . stage frightened amateur broadcasting to millions of listeners . . . a nod from Major Bowes . . . show-girl . . . that's the Horatio Alger story of Sara Berner to date.
With 15 other clever talented young women on the same bill, the Bowes all-girl unit promises to be outstanding among stage presentations.

Keith Scott’s Volume 2 on cartoon voice actors points out Berner’s first role at Warner Bros. was in Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938) as the hen with the Katherine Hepburn voice. You can hear her at MGM, Columbia and elsewhere. More on that from this feature story published May 1, 1946.

Sara Berner Known As The Voice in Behind Scenes Of Movies
By HAROLD E. SWISHER
Motion Picture Editor of United Press Radio
If Sara Berner had paid any attention to the adage about good little girls should be seen and not heard, she might have got an “A” in deportment, but she would have missed out on a career.
As things have turned out Sara is always heard, but never seen. Which is a pity, because she's a pert and petite redhead, with shining brown eyes.

Long before anybody thought of giving Frank Sinatra the title, Sara Berner was known around Hollywood as the voice. That's because she has been the voice for everything from little Jasper in George Pal’s Paramount Puppetoons, to the tauntingly vocal fish in The Road To Utopia.”
Miss Berner became a career girl by what seemed at the time an unhappy accident. It was 10 years ago and she was a youngster working as a salesgirl at the stocking counter of a Philadelphia department store.
One day a pompus dowager came in, showering snooty syllables all over the place. Sara couldn't resist doing a satirical take off right on the spot. The lady overheard, and the little clerk made a quick sprint to her boss, quitting a split-second before she could be fired.
Next day she went into radio, working 12 hours a day at station WCAU.
Today Miss Berner makes 300 dollars for a one-minute appearance weekly on a top comedy program (the Jack Benny show) where she does a stint as Mabel Clapsaddle, a gum-snapping switchboard operator from Brooklyn. Her chores as Jasper’s voice in “Jasper in the Jam,” and other puppet features, net her a comparably pleasant and rewarding sum.
Of course she hasn’t a thing in the world to cry about, but Sara bawls like baby for a series of radio transcriptions advertising a diaper service.
Among other things, this versatile mimic has been the voice of Universal's Andy Panda, and of Daisy Mae and Pansy Yokum in the “Li’l Abner” series of Columbia cartoons. She has provided voices for dogs and cats, cows and chickens, skunks and foxes, snakes and pigs.
Many’s the fan who delighted in telling about the camel in “The Road To Morocco” who turned to the audience and said: “this is the screwiest picture I’ve ever been in!” That was Sara.
With her talented vocal chords, and somebody else’s art work, she danced with Gene Kelly in “Anchors Aweigh.” She was the mouse, of course. She’s Jerry in the Tom and Jerry shorts, too.
But Jasper is Miss Berner’s favorite assignment. Originally Jasper’s voice was recorded by a little negro boy. But time passed and one day his voice cracked and changed midway through a Jasper film. Then Sara took over.
Only once since the Philadelphia accident has Sara been perturbed -by one of her vocal creations. That was when she did the speaking chores for a vulture. To her horror and consternation, when the vulture spoke from the screen, the voice that emerged was an all too-perfect mimicry of her hardboiled landlady of that time. It’s hardly necessary to add that she has since moved.
And her most valued treasure is a cigaret lighter presented personally by Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King as a token of Canadas gratitude for a series of victory loan shows she did in the dominion.
To the rest of us her top treasure appears to be those versatile vocal chords.

Berner revealed to a Los Angeles Daily News columnist that at WCAU, she was given a 15-minute show that was written by Arthur Q. Bryan, who you know as the eventual voice of Elmer Fudd.

Unfortunately, Berner ran afoul of someone who was normally very dedicated to his cast—Jack Benny. I read a short blurb about it once, but found the specifics in Paul Price’s column in the Daily News of Jan. 18, 1954. Jack was generally dedicated to his cast but would stop calling in someone if they annoyed him. Berner played one of the telephone operators for the final time on radio on Dec. 27, 1953. She was replaced, first on Benny’s TV show.

Benny’s vault doors close on Sara Berner
Those massive doors on Jack Benny's famous vault were creaking so slowly yesterday that they prevented Sara Berner, the original "Mabel Flapsaddle,” from appearing on Jack's TV show.
You might say she was shut out at the safe.

Sara, who originated the character of the gabby telephone operator on Benny’s show some 12 years ago and so far as I know has played Mabel ever since, was dropped from the cast at practically the last minute.
It must have been practically the last minute because Sara’s appearance was widely publicized by the CBS press department until late Friday afternoon. Then there was a sudden switch in plans and the CBS press corps got on the telephone to say that Shirley Mitchell had been substituted.
So. if you missed a familiar face yesterday and thought “Mabel Flapsaddle” looked a little different, here’s the inside story.
SARA NOW, she’s the real flip, talky one and Bee Benadaret [sic] plays the other operator—was called several days ago to do the Benny show. Unfortunately, nobody talked money and Sara assumed she was to get her regular salary for a guest spot.
Somebody on the Benny show, however, assumed otherwise and Sara was offered approximately $250 below her asking price. "That is fine, but not for me,” was Sara’s attitude and who can blame her? After all, in a sense, she represents "Mabel Flapsaddle,” and besides how much difference can $250 make to a major production such as the Benny show?
It was a deadlock, and on Friday Producer Ralph Levy made the switch to Shirley Mitchell. Well, it’s all in a day’s work, but some persons might think that 12 years’ service and identification with a character is worth an extra $250 on an occasional TV show.
Especially when you figure that the budget on the program, excluding air time, must go to $30,000.
Sara took it all in stride, however. She said:
"Well, it’s only money.”
See Jack? Or should it be, see Ralph Levy?

Actually, it should be “See Jack?” There’s no way a casting change like that would be made without Benny’s approval.

Mitchell was Mabel when the character appeared on radio again on Feb. 14, 1954 and until the series ended. Berner was hired only once more for Benny’s radio show, and that was to play the nasal singer in a 1955 episode.

Work dried up. She was in fair condition in hospital in early September 1969 and died just before Christmas, without any notice from Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Nor any wire service, as best as I can tell. Berner was a fine comic actress and impressionist. She deserved better. At least over the last number of years, as people become interested in the people on radio and in cartoons who made us laugh, Sara Berner is getting some belated recognition.