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| MILTON BERLE
1908-2002 'Mr. Television' dies at 93 Comedian was king of Tuesday night in TV's early days Tim Goodman, Chronicle Television Critic |
Thursday, March 28, 2002
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Milton Berle, known to legions of fans as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" and a man who had a profound influence on the rapid growth of the medium, died yesterday at his Los Angeles home. He was 93. Berle, widely considered television's first star, was diagnosed with colon cancer a year ago. "He was responsible for the television set in your home today," said Warren Cowan, Berle's publicist. "He put television on the map." A vaudeville player whose destiny was sealed when he signed on to do television, then an unproven medium, Berle rose to stardom as the host of the hourlong "Texaco Star Theater" on NBC in 1948. The show, the title of which later became "The Milton Berle Show," ended in 1956. By then, Berle was already a fixture in the minds of America's growing television audience. Alex McNeil's "Total Television" (Penguin Books, 1996) credits Berle with an unprecedented boom in TV set sales. After Berle's debut, sales of televisions more than doubled, reaching 2 million in 1949. Berle's Tuesday night TV series was blamed for decimating movie ticket sales on that night each week. And in Detroit, "an investigation took place when the water levels took a drastic drop in the reservoirs on Tuesday nights between 9 and 9:05," Berle recalled in "Milton Berle, an Autobiography," written with Haskel Frankel (Delacorte, 1974). "It turned out that everyone waited until the end of the 'Texaco Star Theater' before going to the bathroom. " He was famous for his cornball humor, for shamelessly stealing jokes from other comics and for frequently donning dresses, wigs, lipstick and false eyelashes for drag sketches in his early shows. Berle was dubbed the "Thief of Bad Gags" by gossip columnist Walter Winchell and even joked about stealing quips. "I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my pencil," he once said of a rival comedian, and he stopped at nothing for a laugh. "Good evening, ladies and germs," Berle would say to his audience. "I mean ladies and gentlemen. I call you ladies and gentlemen, but you know what you really are." In 1951, so sure of his talent and draw, NBC gave Berle a 30-year contract worth $200,000 a year, whether he worked or not. He worked, of course, but was never as popular as when he helped usher in the birth of television. His trademark cigar rarely left his hand. In an interview two years ago, Berle said he'd smoked cigars since he was 12. "I figure if George Burns can smoke 20 cigars a day his whole life and live to be 100, why should I worry if they're bad for me?" Milton Berle was born Milton Berlinger, one of five children of the former Sarah Glantz and Moses Berlinger, on July 12, 1908, in a five-story Manhattan walkup. The Berlingers were poor. Moses Berlinger, who had lost his father's paint store, drifted through a succession of jobs. Sarah, known as Sadie, worked as a detective at Wanamaker's department store and even ran her own detective agency. On a pivotal Halloween in his boyhood, Milton put on his father's suit, adorned the lapel with a paper chrysanthemum plucked from a vase, clapped a derby stuffed with paper on his head, cut a piece out of his mother's muff to fashion a mustache, took his father's cane and set out as a midget Charlie Chaplin. That night, he was followed home by a man who asked Mrs. Berlinger to enter Milton in a children's Chaplin contest. Young Milton went on to win. "If a person can be born for something, I guess I was born for show business," Berle wrote. "All I needed was just one little push." Sadie Berlinger provided it. Once she shoved her son on stage in the middle of Al Jolson's act so that he could do his Jolson imitation right next to the real thing. Mrs. Berlinger began to find work for herself and her brood in silent movies, which then were often made in New York and across the Hudson River in Fort Lee, N.J. As extras, she and her children made $1.50 a day. As a child actor, Berle appeared in the "Perils of Pauline" films, then worked with Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and later on Broadway and in the Ziegfeld Follies. When Berle was 10, his mother accepted an offer for her son to join a children's vaudeville act operating out of Philadelphia. He did an imitation of Eddie Cantor. In 1920, at 12, he changed his name when he formed a vaudeville act with a girl named Elizabeth Kennedy. Kennedy and Berlinger was simply too long. By 1921, they had achieved the dream of every vaudevillian, playing the Palace Theater on Broadway. On Dec. 29, 1924, at the age of 16, he made his debut as a single at Loew's State Theater in Times Square, singing "Swanee," doing card tricks, and joking about married life, crossword puzzles and the income tax. His pay was $600 a week. At the start of the 1930s, as the growth of talking pictures was killing vaudeville, Berle appeared on Rudy Vallee's coast-to-coast radio show. He made his first talking picture, "Gags to Riches" for Warner Brothers Vitaphone. And as he began to be known as the youngest master of ceremonies in vaudeville, he also began to banter and upstage the acts he introduced. In 1948, Berle signed to do a radio show -- "Texaco Star Theater." It quickly spawned a television offshoot -- and the first big hit for the medium. Berle won an Emmy for work on his TV series. But he suffered the same type of false starts in the business that still plague big-name stars today. Texaco pulled out at the end of the 1952-53 season after the show, which had been No. 1 for its first three years, slipped to No. 5. Berle then started "The Buick-Berle Show," which ran for two seasons. Buick then opted to switch networks and back Jackie Gleason, so Berle launched "The Milton Berle Show" in 1955, switching the location from New York to Hollywood. The show -- the first color series from California -- lasted one season. Berle followed that with another short-lived variety show, "The Kraft Music Hall," which ended in 1959. His next attempt was a sports show in 1960 called "Jackpot Bowling Starring Milton Berle." It lasted only six months. During the early 1960s, Berle starred in a number of movies, including "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World," (he would also play himself in the Yves Montand-Marilyn Monroe comedy "Let's Make Love," and in Woody Allen's "Broadway Danny Rose"), but his first love was always the small screen. Despite some of the setbacks there, Berle tried again in the fall of 1966, launching another version of "The Milton Berle Show." When the show was canceled by midseason, it proved that even if your nickname is "Mr. Television, " the medium can be ruthless. Despite his ups and downs, few performers were as immediately recognizable as Berle, and he was beloved by people in Hollywood and comedians in particular. He was Abbot Emeritus, the highest rank in the Friars Club, his favorite haunt. He was a regular contributor there, and even in recent years was a feared punch line artist and butt of many jokes himself. Among many of Berle's achievements, he was in the first class of inductees into the Television Hall of Fame in 1984. "From the first days of my career, he was one of my comedic heroes," said Don Rickles. "He was always a great mentor. His style of comedy will never be replaced." Berle is survived by his third wife, Lorna, and four children.
Uncle Miltie's quips Milton Berle earned his nickname, "The Thief of Bad Gags," through quick one-liners like these from his book "Milton Berle's Private Joke File": -- Marriage is one of the few institutions that allow a man to do as his wife pleases. -- A worm has some things going for it. For instance . . . it can't fall down! -- My new parrot must have been raised in a tough neighborhood. He won't talk without an attorney! -- He lives on the wrong side of a one-track mind! -- I just returned from my vacation. I'm still recovering from bus lag! -- They should never send up three astronauts in one capsule. Sooner or later they'll start arguing about who gets the seat by the window! -- The Army is trying to become more attractive to recruits. In the mess hall now they have strolling violin players. -- (A musician) played in Key West. It was the first time I knew what key he was in. -- I'm so henpecked I cackle in my sleep! -- A great actor was asked for the ten thousandth time, "How'd you become a star?" He answered, "I started out as a gaseous cloud. Then I cooled." Source: Associated Press Chronicle news services contributed to this report. / E-mail Tim Goodman at tgoodman@sfchronicle.com |
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