Edward Bernds (July 12, 1905May 20, 2000) was an American screenwriter and director, born in Chicago, Illinois.

Career

While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio clique and obtained amateur licenses. In the early 1920s, there was considerable prestige for amateur operators to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was in a good position to enter broadcasting when he graduated in 1923, a year when radio stations began to be established all over Chicago. He found employment — at age 20 — as chief operator at Chicago's WENR.

When talking pictures began in the late 1920s, Bernds and broadcast operators like him relocated to Hollywood to work as sound technicians in "the talkies". After a brief period at United Artists, Bernds resigned and worked at Columbia Pictures, where he functioned as sound engineer on many of Frank Capra's classics in the 1930s. Years later, Bernds discussed his trying experience during the filming of A Bird in the Head: