Bert Berdis

Bert Berdis (23 March 1939 - 20 Dec 2022) was an American comedy writer and actor known for creating and voice acting in thousands of radio commercials, and for performing voiceovers and writing copy and scripts for TV, including for The Tim Conway Show and others. During his career, he worked as a copywriter and creative director for McCann Erikson (1965-1968), Needham Harper & Steers (1968-1970), Ketchum (1970-1972), and Grey Advertising (1972-1973) before starting his own advertising firms and recording studios.
Berdis has received dozens of professional awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Radio Mercury Awards in 2004, which stated that he was the most awarded creator of radio commercials in America.
== Early Life ==
Berdis was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Berdis’ father was a senior manager of steel mills and later became President of US Steel. For high school, Berdis attended Lawrenceville School|The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and he later earned a Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Science from Syracuse University.
== East Coast Career ==
While at Syracuse University, Berdis created humorous animated TV commercials for a local bank, which won numerous awards. A judge from the New York advertising agency, McCann Erickson, saw his work and offered him a job upon graduation. After two years in New York, Berdis was transferred to their Chicago office where he heard the popular radio series “Chickenman.” Berdis cast the series’ creator, Dick Orkin, in radio commercials written and produced by Berdis for McCann clients. That proved so successful that, in 1973, they started their own advertising agency, “Dick and Bert.”
== Time Magazine Commercials ==
In 1975, Orkin and Berdis began making humorous commercials for Time Magazine, which wanted to shed its stodgy image. “When those spots hit the airwaves, the floodgates opened up,” Berdis recalled. “No one ever thought about doing humor for such a prestigious organization. Suddenly we got calls from all sorts of institutions seeking to brighten their brands. We just exploded.” The four-year campaign for Time Magazine resulted in Orkin and Berdis receiving multiple Clio Awards.
In 1976, a special LP was created by Orkin and Berdis called “Chickenman Returns,” and an updated radio show in 1977, “Chickenman Returns for the Last Time Again.” In the shows, the main character, the "Wonderful White-Winged Warrior," feels that time had passed him by and so decides to open a crime-fighting school to carry on his crusade. However, there is only one student, Leon Cablemouth, which was voiced by Berdis.
== West Coast Career ==
With the large voiceover talent pool that existed in Los Angeles, Orkin and Berdis moved to Hollywood in 1978 and built their own studio. This also increased demand for their services because clients were eager to enjoy the California climate and would travel to work with Orkin and Berdis in person. Orkin and Berdis released a comedy album that year featuring 21 of their commercials, titled “Puffy Sleeves and other Exquisite Foolishness.”
== The Tim Conway Show ==
Tim Conway persuaded Orkin and Berdis to write sketches for him and appear on his situation comedy television show, the Tim Conway Show, which aired on CBS for two years from 1980-1981.
Increased Notoriety
Because of their unique brand of humor that resulted in numerous successful radio campaigns, Orkin and Berdis were popular guests on the talk show circuit, making appearances on the Today Show, The Dinah Shore Show, and local talk shows.
In 1983, NBC asked Orkin and Berdis to create an hour-long, live-audience TV special about their advertising firm and writing process. Orkin preferred the anonymity of a closed studio and refused to perform in front of a live audience. Berdis, on the other hand, was eager to expand their brand and explore new territory. After weeks of negotiating, Orkin refused the deal, which led to the dissolution of the Dick and Bert advertising agency.
Following the split from Orkin, Berdis partnered with Alan Barzman and Jim Kirby to form Bert, Barz & Kirby in the early 1980s. When Jim Kirby departed in 1988, the company became “Bert, Barz & Company.” The company operated out of two buildings on Cahuenga Blvd in Hollywood, consisting of a production facility and studio.
== Beakman’s World ==
In addition to writing, producing, directing, and starring in multiple radio and TV commercials, Berdis and Barzman were cast to do voiceovers for the popular educational children’s television program, “Beakman’s World.” The series ran from 1992 to 1998, and Berdis and Barzman voiced two penguins, “Pinguino Don” (Berdis) and “Pinguino Herb” (Barzman) throughout the run of the show, which still airs in worldwide markets. Berdis and Barzman worked together until the late 1990s.
== Bert Berdis & Company ==
Following Barzman’s departure from the firm, Berdis continued to work from the same location. Berdis built a creative powerhouse which included longtime ACE engineer Stewart Sloke, and The Second City alumni Eric Boardman and Miriam Flynn, who had all followed Berdis to Hollywood from Chicago. Sloke, Boardman, and Flynn also worked with Berdis on the Tim Conway Show. With an expanded team, Berdis was able to increase the number of advertising services offered by the firm. With the team together, they would “punch up” or “doctor” agency-written scripts, and then cast, direct and record them. These additional services brought in a range of new clients and agencies, which necessitated adding more writers, including Brooke Berdis, Jason Cox, Hal Rayle, and Maggie Roswell, who voices multiple characters for the long-running TV show The Simpsons. At their peak, the Berdis team produced over 1,000 humorous commercials per year. When asked if he had ever written anything other than comedy, Berdis replied, “I tried to write a serious commercial once. People laughed.” 
== Studio Expansion in Hollywood ==
While operating Berdis, Barz & Company, to relieve the backlog of creative assignments, so Berdis started a separate company called Waves Sound Recorders, which had three studios and operated independently. From its inception, the studios were booked continuously by advertising agencies. After a few years, Berdis bought the adjacent property and built another studio for Waves Sound Recorders. The new studio featured a comfortable lobby, free coffee, and abundant bagels, leading to Waves Sound Recorders becoming a Hollywood professional hangout for actors, whether they were working at the studios or not. A valet service had to be employed to reduce traffic congestion in front of the business. Berdis operated Waves Sound Recorders until 2006.
== Work in Retirement ==
Berdis retired officially in 2006, but continued to write and act. Known informally as a “Comedy Doctor,” Berdis would "punch up" television or film scripts with his brand of comedy dialogue. Berdis believed he continued to get requests for work because, as he said, “Every movie – even the most dramatic – needs least three places for comedy relief. The audience needs to “untense.” And while they may remember a great shootout, they will also always recall a well-placed pie in the face.”
== Movie Role: Quality Problems ==
In 2018, Berdis played the role of "Don," an eccentric millionaire in “Quality Problems,” a feature film written, produced, and directed by his daughter Brooke Purdy and son-in-law Doug Purdy. Berdis’s two grandchildren also acted in the movie.
== Personal Life ==
Berdis was married to Carol Patterson from 1965-1975, and they had a daughter, Brooke Allison Purdy (née Berdis). Berdis married attorney Sherry Denise Spees in 1999, and lived in the Hollywood Hills in the home they designed together.
A longtime wine aficionado, Berdis was a Commander in the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.
Berdis was a regular submitter of captions for the New Yorker Magazine’s weekly cartoon caption contest. In 2021, one of Berdis’ submissions was published as second to the finalist.
Category:American people
Category:American writers
Category:1939 births