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Milton Berle
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Milton Berle was the first great superstar of the TV age, the undisputed king of the medium in the early 1950s. His variety show Texaco Star Theater (later The Milton Berle Show) ran from 1948-56, with ringleader Berle often wearing women's gowns and other outrageous costumes; his popularity earned him the nicknames "Mr. Television" and "Uncle Miltie." Berle got his start in vaudeville, touring as a stand-up comic and eventually appearing with the Ziegfeld Follies. After his own show ended Berle made hundreds of guest appearances on TV and starred in movie comedies like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963, playing Ethel Merman's son-in-law) and Who's Minding the Mint (1967, with Joey Bishop). He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1984.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Milton Berle, the acerbic, cigar-smoking vaudevillian who eagerly embraced a new medium and became "Mr. Television" when the technology was in its infancy, died Wednesday. He was 93. Berle was diagnosed with colon cancer last year and had been under hospice care for the past few weeks. Berle's wife, Lorna, and several family members were at his side when he died at home after a lengthy illness, publicist Warren Cowan said.
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More, October 2002: Milton Berle has an illegitimate son named "Bob Williams" who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Bob owns a cigar store. Bob's mom was a Vegas show girl. Milton acknowledged Bob only to his closest friends, but had Bob visit him in LA, and came to Phoenix to visit a couple of times. Bob is the spitting image of his father. It's uncanny how much they resemble each other.
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During his multi-faceted rise as a performer, Milton Berle first appeared on television in a 1929 experimental broadcast in Chicago, when he emceed a closed-circuit telecast before 129 people. In the commercial TV era, he appeared in 1947 on DuMont station WABD (in Wanamaker's New York City department store) as an auctioneer to raise money for The Heart Fund. In the following year he would come to television in a far more prominent manner, and through the new medium become a national icon. He would become known as "Mr. Television," the first star the medium could call its own. Skyrocketing to national prominence in the late 1940s, he was ... the first TV personality to suffer over-exposure and burn-out.
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Milton Berle died of colon cancer on March 27, 2002, at the age of 93. Berle left detailed arrangements for burial with his third wife, Ruth, at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Burbank. However, his fourth wife, Lorna Adams, altered the plan so that Berle was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. He was survived by two adopted children; a daughter, Victoria, born in 1945, and a son, William, born in 1961.
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The legendary comic Milton Berle, who reportedly possessed the largest penis in Hollywood, once participated in a "size contest". Shortly before the event, he was offered a word of sage advice. The friendly tip? "Only take out enough to win!"
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Milton Berle