Ventriloquist Central Blog

Most of you haven’t known but for over a couple of weeks, my wife Helen has been very ill and in the hospital.

It is with a very heavy heart that I am writing this blog. Unfortunately my partner and love of my life for the past 37 years will not be coming home to me. The doctors this morning had a conference with me and my son Jason and let me know that her liver was just too far gone and just was not functioning at a level high enough to get her other organs to continue working.

They had to put her in a paralytic state just to regulate her breathing. She never was aware from the moment she went into surgery 17 days ago and always insisted to me that I, if anything happened, let her go. So today July 4, 2013 we took Helen off the machines and she passed away this afternoon.

I want to thank those of you who knew for your kind prayers and wishes to me and I know Helen heard them all and appreciated them too.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

(P.S. Steve here…..in memory of Helen we will not be having blogs for the next few days…..please check back early next week. Thanks)

From both Steve and I here at Ventriloquist Central, we wish everyone a safe and Happy 4th of July.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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With the current release of David Erskine’s new book, “The Great Lester: Ventriloquism’s Renaissance Man”, I thought it only fitting to reprint this blog from exactly five years ago today.

David sent us this information and I thought it was a good time to re-share it with everyone:

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My Idol in ventriloquism is W.S. Berger. I give him credit for having the fore sight to see the value of ventriloquist figures before they were a collectible item in any sense of the word collectible. They were used props which to anyone other than he were valueless.

He was able to purchase figures directly from the great makers of the early 20th century for the asking prices they sold to any one else that was buying a figure. He purchased Jacko from the McElroy Brothers for $125.00 and was able to actually make monthly payments to them for the purchase. How great was that??

But he was a business man too and not only did he buy but he also sold. In the issues of the Oracle magazine in the 1950’s he often put in adds with a list of books and figures for sale. He also made a deal with Len Insull to sell figures from his workshop.

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As happens with collecting over the years I have been able to acquire a few great items and this is one of them. This is a fiberglass casting made by the McElroy Brothers during the process of making their very last figure Dudley. As I said this is all fiberglass cast and has been coated and smoothed out. This a chance you may never get again in your lifetime. An original casting from the McElroy Brothers.

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