TV comedy loses its patriarch Uncle Miltie
Milton Berle 1908-2002
By Diane Holloway
American-Statesman Television Writer
Thursday, March 28, 2002
One of the first -- and certainly one of the most beloved -- stars of television stumbled into the infant electronic medium five decades ago as host of a gasoline-sponsored variety show.
By the time the show faded, the medium was a pop culture mainstay, and the previously unknown comedian was famously known as "Mr. Television."
Milton Berle, 93, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after a yearlong battle with colon cancer. His wife, Lorna, and other family members were with him.
On "Texaco Star Theatre," Berle told silly jokes, grinned buck-toothed grins, took pies in the face and dressed in women's clothes -- sometimes like a well-bred lady, sometimes like a cheap showgirl. He also sang the ad jingle with the four uniformed Texaco Service Men: "Ooooh, we're the men of Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico . . ."
There was nothing Berle wouldn't do for a laugh, and millions of Americans laughed like maniacs every Tuesday night from 1948 to 1956. He introduced television to the masses, and during his show's first three years, his ratings were as high as 80 percent of the audience. Stores closed, bridge games ceased and theater owners complained of half-empty houses.
Of course, back then there were only a couple of million TV households in the country -- compared with today's 94 million -- and there was little competition. But the love affair with Berle was genuine and intense nonetheless.
There were funnier, smarter and more sophisticated comedians, but none became part of the American family like "Uncle Miltie."
Milton Berlinger was born in New York on July 12, 1908, and started performing in vaudeville as a child. By the 1930s, he was a busy comedian in Broadway revues such as the Ziegfeld Follies. He guest-starred on radio as a young man but dreamed of becoming a movie star in Hollywood.
After only moderate success in more than 50 silent films and talkies such as "Tall, Dark and Handsome" in 1941 and "Margin for Error" in 1943, Berle signed on as the first of several rotating hosts on "Texaco Star Theatre."
The fledgling medium was just getting off the ground and finding its way into living rooms. "Uncle Miltie," who had taken a chance because he needed the paycheck, quickly endeared himself to America.
Berle's show was an old-fashioned vaudeville variety hour that featured guest stars, jugglers, singers, ventriloquists, acrobats and lots of sketches. If the writers didn't include him in a guest star's sketch, he popped in anyway and ad-libbed his way through the scene. The studio and home audiences lapped it up, especially when Berle and his co-stars cracked one another up.
At the end of every week's show, Berle sang the theme song "Near You," perhaps not very well but well enough to send viewers off feeling happy and satisfied.
As television matured, top radio stars who had been skeptical of the new medium flocked to it. Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Red Skelton, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, just to name a few, slowly nibbled into Berle's audience. By 1956, "The Milton Berle Show," as it had become a couple of years earlier, had run out of steam and was canceled by NBC.
Berle attempted comebacks with several other comedy-variety shows, but the audience had moved on -- to Westerns, dramas and anthologies. Uncle Miltie was past his prime, and his final comeback attempt was trounced in the ratings by "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." in 1966.
Although Berle often lamented that the new TV stars had no respect for founding fathers such as himself, he made it a point later in life to support younger comedians. He appeared on specials with Richard Pryor and Steve Martin and regularly attended the Friars Club roasts and other comedy events.
Through his 80s and even in his early 90s, Berle continued to perform some of his classic sketches and monologues in nightclubs and theaters around the country. Chomping on an ever-present, oversized cigar, he never lost his gift for perfect timing and deft delivery. He may have been a man past his prime and out of date, but he never lost his way with a one-liner.
At a television critics' function a few years ago, a reporter asked him what his next project would be. He puffed, blew a cloud of silver smoke, peered at his questioner with milky blue eyes and quipped, "Why? Am I finished with the one I've been working on?"
Berle is survived by his third wife Lorna, whom he married in 1991, and by four grown children from previous marriages.
dholloway@statesman.com; 445-3608
This article contains material from wire services.
Berle's `bad gags'
Milton Berle earned his nickname, "The Thief of Bad Gags," through such jokes as these, from his book "Milton Berle's Private Joke File."
* Marriage is one of the few institutions that allows a man to do as his wife pleases.
* He lives on the wrong side of a one-track mind.
* Last month, I put in a rock garden. Two of them were dead in the morning.
* (A musician) played in Key West. It was the first time I knew what key he was in.
* My new parrot must have been raised in a tough neighborhood. He won't talk without an attorney.
* 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." |
