Sara Berner claimed never to have gotten an angry letter in response to her dialect impersonations. Maybe that’s true; I certainly can’t prove it one way or another. It is, however, true that the very idea of her act seems in questionable taste; she used accents to get laughs. Oh, she also did impersonations of real people—when the studios wanted to do one of those cartoons with a bunch of famous or semi-famous people in them, Berner was often called on to voice the women. Her Katharine Hepburn seems to have been particularly admired. But she was also referred to as a “dialectician,” and I’m not sure it was from studying the history and origin of assorted dialects.

Apparently, Berner—whose stage name was her mother’s maiden name—became fascinated by vaudeville and silent movies, and she would act scenes out for the bathroom attendant. (Can you imagine being that bathroom attendant?) She later worked in a department store where she was fired for impersonating a customer. She worked in a millinery shop where she’d develop her own version of the customers’ accents; she skipped out on that job in order to attend an audition.

From there, she was off and running; she was hired from that audition for Major Edward Bowes’ “all-girl” vaudeville troupe. Her act seems to have involved being a salesgirl who did celebrity impersonations. After the tour ended, she was in Hollywood, where she started to work on syndicated radio shows. She did Fibber McGee & Molly, The Jack Benny Program, and, sigh, Amos & Andy. Also something called Life With Luigi that I’m sure was sensitive toward Italian-Americans. She had her own radio show, Sara’s Private Caper, which sounds frankly delightful, and of course she did Lux Radio Theatre.

Another use of her talents in Hollywood was in animation. Now, she did some stone-cold classics—she’s the voice of Red in “Red Hot Riding Hood,” among other things, and she was also in “Blitz Wolf.” She didn’t voice Jerry Mouse often, but she did in Anchors Aweigh. Unfortunately, she also did no few cartoons where she voiced characters named things like “Minnie Hot-Cha,” not to mention a black boy named Jasper. It’s awkward, and alas it’s the nature of animation in the ‘40s.

All of that and her most notable role in the modern day remains one minor appearance in a single movie. Sure, she voiced Chilly Willy, but who voices Chilly Willy cartoons anymore? No, we remember her from Rear Window. She’s credited as “woman on fire escape.” She doesn’t even get a character nickname the way “Miss Torso” does. But if you watch the movie, it’s hard not to be moved by her grief when her dog has been murdered. It’s a heck of a performance in a very minor part.

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