Milton Berle

Milton Berle, born Mendel Berlinger on July 12, 1908, in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, was an American actor, comedian, and composer whose career in entertainment spanned more than eight decades. He died on March 27, 2002. Raised in a Jewish family in a five-story walkup, he adopted the professional name Milton Berle at age sixteen. His father, Moses Berlinger, was a paint and varnish salesman of German-Jewish descent, and his mother, Sarah Glantz Berlinger, was of Polish-Jewish ancestry and later changed her name to Sandra Berle. He had three older brothers, two of whom eventually joined his television production staff, while a third, Phil, worked as a programming executive at NBC.

Berle entered show business in 1913 at the age of five by winning a children's Charlie Chaplin contest. He worked as a child model, serving as the face of Buster Brown shoes, and appeared as a child actor in silent films during the 1910s and 1920s, though his presence in some of those productions has been disputed by film historians. In 1916, he enrolled in the Professional Children's School. Around 1920, at age twelve, he made his stage debut in a revival of the musical comedy Florodora in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a production that subsequently moved to Broadway. By his mid-teens he was working as a master of ceremonies in vaudeville, and by the early 1930s he had established himself as a successful stand-up comedian.

His Broadway career extended from 1932 to 1968 and encompassed several productions. In 1932 he starred in Earl Carroll's Vanities, and he also appeared in the musical Saluta and the revue Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1925. He starred in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1943 and later appeared in The Goodbye People. As a composer, Berle contributed to the musical side of his career both on stage and in film. In 1933 he starred in the theatrical featurette Poppin' the Cork, produced by Jack White, and co-wrote its score, which was released by Educational Pictures. He also co-wrote, with Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, the title song for the 1940 RKO Radio Pictures release Li'l Abner, and contributed to a Spike Jones recording, "Leave the Dishes in the Sink, Ma."

Berle built a substantial radio presence throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared frequently on The Rudy Vallee Hour from 1934 to 1936 and was a regular on The Gillette Original Community Sing, a CBS comedy-variety program that ran from September 6, 1936, to August 29, 1937. In 1939 he hosted Stop Me If You've Heard This One, and he later hosted the audience participation program Let Yourself Go from 1944 to 1945. Kiss and Make Up aired on CBS in 1946, with Berle serving as a judge deciding contestants' problems. The Milton Berle Show, scripted by Nat Hiken and Aaron Ruben and featuring Arnold Stang, Pert Kelton, Jack Albertson, and Ed Begley among others, aired on NBC from March 11, 1947, to April 13, 1948, sponsored by Philip Morris, before continuing for an additional season under Texaco sponsorship through June 15, 1949.

It was in television, however, that Berle achieved his most far-reaching fame. He first appeared on television in 1929 in an experimental broadcast in Chicago before an audience of 129 people. He returned to the medium nearly two decades later, hosting The Texaco Star Theatre on NBC beginning June 8, 1948. Originally part of a rotating group of hosts, he was named the permanent host that fall. His vaudeville-rooted style, built on slapstick and elaborate costuming, proved exceptionally well suited to the visual demands of the new medium. The program reached the number one position in the Nielsen ratings with as much as a 97 percent share of the viewing audience, and both Berle and the show received Emmy Awards after its first season. Television set sales more than doubled following the show's debut, reaching two million in 1949. His dominance of Tuesday night television earned him the nickname "Mr. Television," and an ad-libbed sign-off to young viewers in 1949 — telling them to listen to their Uncle Miltie and go to bed — gave rise to a second enduring nickname. He served as host of Texaco Star Theatre from 1948 to 1953. Berle was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for his work in radio and one for his work in television.