Today is the 110th birthday of the comedian Milton Berle. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.
NAME: Milton Berle
OCCUPATION: Radio Personality, Film Actor, Television Actor, Comedian, Television Personality
BIRTH DATE: July 12, 1908
DEATH DATE: March 27, 2002
PLACE OF BIRTH: New York, New York
PLACE OF DEATH: Los Angeles, California
AKA: Milton Berle, Mr. Television, Uncle Miltie
NICKNAME: The Thief of Bad Gags
ORIGINALLY: Milton Berlinger
Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame
Emmy 1950 Most Outstanding Kinescope Personality
Emmy 1979 (special, “Mr. Television”)
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6263 Hollywood Blvd.
BEST KNOWN FOR: Milton Berle was a Jewish-American comedian who started in vaudeville acts, and was a success in the early days of TV, becoming known as “Uncle Miltie.”
Comedy legend Milton Berle was born as Milton Berlinger in New York City on July 12, 1908. He started his career by impersonating Charlie Chaplin at as a young boy. After winning a Chaplin look-alike contest at the age of 5, he began landing film roles. Berle appeared in numerous silent films, including The Mark of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and Tillie’s Punctured Romance, with Charlie Chaplin.
Berle also performed on the vaudeville circuit, sometimes landing on the same bill as Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson. Nearly every step of the way, in his early years, Berle was accompanied by his mother, who was both his manager and biggest fan. According to the The Boston Globe, Berle said that his mother sat in the audience “for every show,” adding, “She had a loud laugh. She’d cue the audience, but they never knew it was my mother.”
Berle made his first radio appearance in 1934, but he continued to be more famous for his live acts. By the 1940s, he was one of the highest paid night-club performers. He also developed a reputation for being a joke thief, stealing other people’s material for his routine—an accusation that he embraced. “Like every comedian, if I heard a joke that I thought would work, I used it,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. Journalist Walter Winchell nicknamed Berle “The Thief of Bad Gags.”
In the late 1940s, Berle took a gamble on a then-emerging medium—television. His show Texaco Star Theater debuted in 1948, and he quickly became a huge star. Known as “Mr. Television” and “Uncle Miltie,” Berle became a weekly fixture in the homes of many Americans, and a motivation for some to purchase their first television set. He joked aggressively with his audience, and seemed to have no limits for getting laughs, including dressing up in women’s clothing. The show’s writers included Neil Simon, who later found fame as a playwright.
Berle’s ratings started to ebb in 1953, and he lost Texaco as a sponsor. When the Buick car company jumped aboard for one season, the show was renamed The Buick-Berle Show. In its final year, however, it was titled The Milton Berle Show. After signing off in 1955, Berle made several attempts to recapture his earlier success, but had no luck. He continued to make guest TV appearances on such shows as The Love Boat and Batman—on which he played a recurring role as the villainous “Louie the Lilac.”
Outside of his TV career, Berle continued to thrive as a comedian in Las Vegas, as well as other parts of the country. He performed until December 1998, when he suffered a mild stroke. Rather than go on stage, Berle held court at the Friars Club, a popular haunt for comics in Beverly Hills, California.
A year after being diagnosed with colon cancer, on March 27, 2002, Milton Berle died at his Los Angeles, California home. He was survived by his third wife, Lorna, his two stepchildren, and two children from previous marriages.
Fellow comedian Buddy Hackett remembered Berle as a pioneer. “Whatever you see on television, Milton did it first,” Hackett told The New York Times.
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Driving Me Crazy (16-May-1991) · Hotel Clerk
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (19-Jul-1985) · Himself
Broadway Danny Rose (27-Jan-1984) · Himself
Cracking Up (1983)
The Muppet Movie (22-Jun-1979)
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (26-May-1976)
Lepke (1975)
Journey Back to Oz (5-Dec-1974) [VOICE]
Evil Roy Slade (18-Feb-1972)
Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (19-Mar-1969)
For Singles Only (5-Jun-1968)
Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (10-Apr-1968) · The Movie Director
Who’s Minding the Mint? (26-Sep-1967)
The Happening (Mar-1967) · Fred
The Oscar (4-Mar-1966) · Kappy Kapstetter
The Loved One (11-Oct-1965) · Mr. Kenton
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (7-Nov-1963) · J. Russell Finch
Always Leave Them Laughing (23-Nov-1949) · Kip Cooper
Margin for Error (8-Jan-1943)
Over My Dead Body (25-Dec-1942)
Whispering Ghosts (17-May-1942)
A Gentleman at Heart (16-Jan-1942) · Lucky Cullen
Sun Valley Serenade (21-Aug-1941)
Tall, Dark and Handsome (23-Jan-1941)
Radio City Revels (11-Feb-1938)
New Faces of 1937 (2-Jul-1937) · Wallington
Author of books:
Out of My Trunk: Milton Berle’s Fabulous Fun-tasy (1945, humor)
Milton Berle: An Autobiography (1974, memoir, with Haskel Frankel)
B. S. I Love You: Sixty Funny Years with the Famous and the Infamous (1988, memoir)
Milton Berle’s Private Joke File: Over 10,000 of His Best Gags, Anecdotes, and One-Liners (1989, humor)
Source: Milton Berle – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source: Milton Berle, TV’s First Star as ‘Uncle Miltie,’ Dies at 93
Source: Milton Berle
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It's Words To Live By July on my instagram account!
I will be posting a quote that I love every day for the month of July.
