Edward Bernds was born in the year 1905 in the city of Chicago, Illinois. During his junior year at Lake View High School, he and a group of friends formed a small radio club and successfully obtained amateur licenses. In the early 1920s, there was a significant amount of prestige associated with being an amateur operator, also known as a "ham," to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was well-positioned to transition into broadcasting after graduating in 1923, a time when radio stations were rapidly emerging throughout Chicago.
Following his graduation, Bernds secured employment at the age of 20 as the chief operator at Chicago's WENR radio station. As talking pictures became increasingly popular in the late 1920s, Bernds and other broadcast operators, including himself, relocated to Hollywood to work as sound technicians in the newly emerging "talkies" film industry.
After a brief stint at United Artists, Bernds left and began working at Columbia Pictures, where he served as a sound technician on many notable films, including several classics directed by Frank Capra during the 1930s. He eventually progressed to directing two-reel shorts and later feature-length films.
