Milton Berle was an American comedian and actor. As the host of NBC’s Texaco Star Theater (1948–55), he was the first major American television star and was known to millions of viewers as “Uncle Miltie” and “Mr. Television” during TV’s golden age.
Milton Berle entered show business at the age of five when he won an amateur talent contest. He appeared as a child actor in silent films, beginning with The Perils of Pauline, filmed in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The director told Berle that he would portray a little boy who would be thrown from a moving train. In Milton Berle: An Autobiography, he explained, “I was scared shitless, even when he went on to tell me that Pauline would save my life. Which is exactly what happened, except that at the crucial moment they threw a bundle of rags instead of me from the train. I bet there are a lot of comedians around today who are sorry about that.”
Milton Berle continued to play child roles in other films: Bunny’s Little Brother, Tess of the Storm Country, Birthright, Love’s Penalty, Divorce Coupons and Ruth of the Range. Berle recalled, “There were even trips out to Hollywood—the studios paid—where I got parts in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, with Mary Pickford; The Mark of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Tillie’s Punctured Romance, with Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Marie Dressler.” In 1916, Berle enrolled in the Professional Children’s School.
Around 1920, at age 12, Milton Berle made his stage debut in a revival of the musical comedy Florodora in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which later moved to Broadway. By the time he was 16, he was working as a Master of Ceremonies in Vaudeville. By the early 1930s he was a successful stand-up comedian, patterning himself after one of Vaudeville’s top comics, Ted Healy.
In 1933, Milton Berle was hired by producer Jack White to star in the theatrical featurette Poppin’ the Cork, a topical musical comedy concerning the repealing of Prohibition. Berle also co-wrote the score for this film, which was released by Educational Pictures. Berle continued to dabble in songwriting.
Milton Berle was named to the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest number of charity performances made by a show-business performer.
In April 2001 Milton Berle announced that a malignant tumor had been found in his colon, but he had declined surgery. Berle’s wife said the tumor was growing so slowly that it would take 10 to 12 years to affect him in any significant or life-threatening way. Less than one year after the announcement, on March 27, 2002, Berle died in Los Angeles from colon cancer.
