Milton Berle

Parents were Moses Berlinger (1873-1938) and Sarah/Sadie (Glantz) Berlinger (1877-1954). His father was born in New York, to German Jewish immigrants, and his mother was also born in NY, to Russian Jewish parents.

Had four siblings: Phil Berle (born 1901), Francis (born 1904), Jack (born 1905) and Rosalind (born 1913) (all deceased).

Milton Berle was born Milton Berlinger on July 12, 1908, in New York City, to Sarah (Glantz) and Moses Berlinger, a paint and varnish salesman. He was educated at New York Professional Children's School and began performing at age 5. His first stage appearance was in "Florodora" in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Appeared for the first time on television in an experimental TV broadcast in 1929, and sometimes is credited with being the first person to appear on television, possibly because a film of the broadcast has survived. On April 7, 1927, an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover was transmitted by AT&T in the first successful long distance demonstration of TV. Later that day, AT&T broadcast other material, including vaudeville comedian A. Dolan. WRNY (Coytesville, New Jersey) became the first standard radio station to transmit a television image, the face of Mrs. John Geloso, on August 13, 1928 in a process resembling early Web "broadcasts", with a delay of a few seconds between image and voice, while on August 22, 1928, WGY simultaneously broadcast Alfred E. Smith accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on radio and TV. "The Queen's Messenger" was the first play broadcast by television, on September 11, 1928 by W2XAD, an event that made the front page of the New York Times. Thus, Berle cannot be considered the first "television performer" in history.

His television debut was on experimental scanning-wheel television in Chicago in 1929.

Described a brief affair with Aimee Semple McPherson in 1930 in his 1975 autobiography, "Milton Berle: An Autobiography".

He appeared at the Palace Theater in New York in 1931, then in nightclubs and theaters.

Berle co-wrote, with Ben Oakland, the title song for the film Li'l Abner (1940).

He appeared in the Broadway musicals "Saluta", "See My Lawyer" and "Ziegfeld Follies of 1943".

In 1947 he founded the Friars Club of Beverly Hills at the old Savoy Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Other founding members included Jimmy Durante, George Jessel, Robert Taylor and Bing Crosby. The club, which moved to Beverly Hills in 1961, is a private show business club famous for its celebrity members and roasts, where a member is mocked by their club friends in good fun.

His mother, Sarah Berlinger (later called Sandra Berle), was often shown on camera as she sat in the audience for The Milton Berle Show (1948).

In May 1949 he hosted the world's first charity telethon, benefiting the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund. The program lasted 24 hours.

In 1962 NBC tried to develop a television series around incidents in his life, but the series never got beyond the planning stage.

Along with Vincent Price, Liberace and Ethel Merman, he is one of only four actors to both play a Special Guest Villain in Batman (1966) and guest star in The Muppet Show (1976).

Interviewed in "The Great Comedians Talk About Comedy" by Larry Wilde (1968).

He died on the same day as Dudley Moore and Billy Wilder. Coincidentally, Berle and Moore both made guest appearances in The Muppet Show (1976).

In 1984 he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, and in 1991 became the first entertainer inducted into the International Comedy Hall of Fame.

Late in life, one of Berle's favorite television shows was Matlock (1986), so he wrote a script for Matlock: The Last Laugh (1993), about an over the hill comedian accused of murder, so he could appear on the show as that character when the script was filmed as an episode in 1993.

Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald S. Smith, pg. 46-48. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387

Known to younger generations for his infamous pairing with drag queen RuPaul at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. The two got along very poorly on-camera, spending more time going off-script and lobbing harsh potshots and verbal low blows at each other than actually presenting an award. They also got along just as poorly backstage, if not more so. RuPaul claimed Berle was acting rude and sexually inappropriate towards him, even allegedly touching RuPaul's false breasts at one point. This incident prompted RuPaul to end what was, until then, a very prosperous professional relationship with MTV.

On Dec. 5, 1999, he suffered a mild stroke at his home in California.

Appears on a 44¢ USA commemorative postage stamp, issued 11 August 2009, in the Early TV Memories issue honoring "Texaco Star Theater" (titled The Milton Berle Show (1948), 1954-1956).