Worsley made his first stage appearance at age 11 at the Casino, Rusholme, Manchester, billed as the "World's Youngest Ventriloquist".

He appeared on most of the variety shows on British TV and was one of the few British acts who achieved success in the US, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States returning to perform a variation of his act for ten years in a row.

He was called "the greatest ventriloquist in the world" by Ed Sullivan,[2] who hired him to appear in what turned out to be the third and last appearance by singer Elvis Presley on his show, on 6 January 1957, a program which was broadcast live from the old CBS Studio 50 in New York City and drawing some 50 million TV viewers, as revealed by Trendex figures the week after.

Ed Sullivan admired Worsley's ventriloquism act because, in addition to being funny, Worsley's technique was so perfect that he could appear in tight close-up exhibiting no discernible lip movements while his "figure" (dummy) appeared to be speaking.

Worsley would accept Charlie's tirades with a Buster Keaton-like implacability, on rare occasions a barely detectable rise of the eyebrow, on still rarer ones a slight smirk.