[5] Berner hosted her own fifteen-minute program (written by Arthur Q. Bryan) thereafter on a local radio station,[5] then returned to New York City in hopes of pursuing a show-business career.

[7] Beginning in 1937, Berner toured the country as part of Bowes' sixteen-member "all-girl unit" of vaudeville acts over the next four years,[6] and created a gimmick of a fired saleslady who performed imitations of celebrities such as Mae West and Katharine Hepburn.

[8][9] After the Major Bowes tour ended, Berner began working in network radio in Hollywood, with recurring roles on Fibber McGee & Molly and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.

[12] Other radio work included waitress Dreamboat Mulvany on Arthur's Place;[15] Mrs. Horowitz on Life with Luigi; Helen Wilson on Amos 'n' Andy; and an Italian housekeeper on The Jimmy Durante Show.

[16] As a result of her radio successes,[17] Berner was given her own series on NBC, Sara's Private Caper, in which she starred as a police department stenographer who moonlighted as an amateur sleuth to solve crimes.

[18] Billed as "a satire on private detective stories" that claimed to feature Berner's actual voice,[18] the show premiered on June 15, 1950, but was canceled after just eleven weeks, with its final broadcast on August 24.

She was initially utilized for her imitations of Hollywood film actresses,[9][11][22] such as Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Mae West, Edna May Oliver and Martha Raye.

[3] In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), she and Frank Cady portrayed a married couple living in a Greenwich Village apartment complex shared by the film's temporarily immobile main character (played by James Stewart).

[1] However, she worked little in the 1960s, aside from performing at the 1961 Grammy Awards in a comic-relief role alongside Mort Sahl,[34] and appearing as a guest on Gypsy Rose Lee's daytime talk show in November 1966.

[45] Berner was an in-demand entertainer for American servicemen during World War II, giving over 300 performances at Army bases in addition to 84 appearances at the Hollywood Canteen and one on the Saratoga in 1944.