"Born: Chicago, Ill moved to Menasha, WI around 1945 Married/Wife Cheryl /Saw Bob Neller for the first time in Appleton, WI at a Synogog show around 1950. I was so impressed with what I saw that my Aunt got me a Jerry Mahoney dummy with a small instruction booklet.....I put my first performance on for a school show when I was about ll years old. After that I started doing birthday parties. Somehow my family got in touch with Bob Neller who lived in the next town and he agreed to sell me his old Frank Marshall dummy that he no longer was using for $75.00. About a year later he tried to trade the dummies body for another one but I decided that I was happy with the one I already had. When I was about14 years old I appeared twice on a local TV station WTMJ called the Wisconsin House Party and from that was invited to appear in a Parade in the city of Oconomowoc, Wi. When I was 15years old I visited family in Los Angeles and while there I decided to look up the Great Lester who lived in a seedy upper apartment in downtown L.A. . He must have been in his 80's. He was very friendly and spent a couple of hours giving me pointers. I also asked my cousin to drive me to the home of Edger Bergen where his daughter offered to take me in the house to met her famous father......stupidly I begged off mentioning that I would like to come back with my dummy that I had forgotten to bring with me....I left my name and phone number so Mr. Bergen could call me to set up another meeting... sadly I never got that call back.

I moved to Los Angeles around 1960 for 10 years......I did get an offer from a writer to appear in shows that he would set up for me but I sadly turned him down and always wonder how my life would have changed......Currently I am semi-retired where I manage about 12 commercial buildings and collect antiques."    Bernard Kallman