# Milton Berle
**Milton Berle** (born Mendel Berlinger; July 12, 1908 – March 27, 2002) was an American comedian and actor whose hosting of NBC's *Texaco Star Theatre* made him the first major star of American television, earning him the nicknames "Mr. Television" and "Uncle Miltie".[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) His career in entertainment lasted more than 80 years, spanning silent film, vaudeville, Broadway, radio, nightclubs, motion pictures, and television.[2](https://californiamuseum.org/inductee/milton-berle/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | Mendel Berlinger, July 12, 1908, New York City; died of colon cancer March 27, 2002, in Los Angeles, aged 93[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) |
| Signature show | Host of NBC's *Texaco Star Theatre* from fall 1948, which reached a 97 percent share of the viewing audience[3](https://www.bates.edu/museum/exhibitions/milton-berle-biography/) |
| Impact on TV adoption | US television ownership grew from about 400,000 sets to over ten million between the show's 1948 debut and the 1951–52 season[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) |
| First telethon | Hosted a 16-hour NBC telecast from 12 p.m. April 9 to 3:55 a.m. April 10, 1949, raising about $1,100,000 for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund[4](https://time.com/4932096/first-telethon/) |
| NBC contract | A 30-year contract paying $200,000 a year, described as an unprecedented lifetime contract[5](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html) • [1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) |
| Child start | Won a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest at age five; film debut in *The Perils of Pauline* (1914)[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) |
| Honors | 1979 Emmy Award; two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) • [6](https://time.com/7024579/saturday-night-movie-cast-real-people/) |
## Early life and child career
Berle was born in New York City to Moses Berlinger, a paint shop owner, and Sarah Glantz Berlinger, a department store detective who later changed her first name to Sandra and managed her son's career for decades.[5](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html) • [7](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1457) The Library of Congress finding aid records his birth in [Harlem](https://www.edgepedia.org/harlem) as the fourth of five children.[7](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1457)
**Show business at five.** Lacking a [Halloween costume](https://www.edgepedia.org/halloween-costume), the five-year-old improvised a Chaplinesque outfit from his father's suit, a derby hat, and a piece of his mother's fur muff pasted under his nose, and won a Chaplin look-alike contest at a local vaudeville theater.[5](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html) He worked as a model for [Buster Brown](https://www.edgepedia.org/buster-brown) children's clothes and within months was playing kid parts in silent films made in New York. His first bit role was in *The Perils of Pauline* (1914), as the child thrown from a train; he went on to appear in *Tillie's Punctured Romance* with [Charlie Chaplin](https://www.edgepedia.org/charlie-chaplin), *Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm* with Mary Pickford (1917), and *The Mark of Zorro* with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (1921).[5](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html) • [2](https://californiamuseum.org/inductee/milton-berle/)
He attended New York's Professional Children's School from 1916 and appeared in the Atlantic City revival of the musical *Floradora* in 1920 as part of the Baby Sextet.[7](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1457) In 1921 he began performing under the name Milton Berle while legally retaining the surname Berlinger, and toured the Keith Circuit with Elizabeth Kennedy as Kennedy and Berle.[7](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1457) In 1931 he became the youngest master of ceremonies at the Palace Theater on Broadway.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002)
His first television appearance predated commercial television by two decades: in 1929, while headlining the Palace Theater in Chicago, he took part in a closed-circuit experiment before an audience of ten.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries) • [9](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-may-17-ca-50499-story.html)
## Texaco Star Theatre and "Mr. Television"
Texaco, which already sponsored Berle on a radio program, moved its showcase to television and tried him as guest host on the new TV version; *Texaco Star Theater* premiered on NBC in the fall of 1948 and became the first show to achieve mass popularity with the American viewing public.[9](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-may-17-ca-50499-story.html) • [10](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/arts-and-entertainment/texaco-star-theater) Airing at eight o'clock on Tuesday nights, the show was so popular that businesses shut down across the country so people could watch, and it reached a 97 percent share of the viewing audience.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) • [3](https://www.bates.edu/museum/exhibitions/milton-berle-biography/) Tuesday night became known as the night to stay home, and Berle picked up the names "Mr. Tuesday Night" and "Uncle Miltie", the latter from his on-air advice to children that it was time for bed.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) • [11](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Encyclopedia-of-American-Television-Lackman-2003.pdf)
His comedy style came almost directly from vaudeville, with slapstick humor and a new outlandish costume every week, and he nearly always appeared on stage holding a cigar.[12](https://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/milton-berle/bio/3030418668/) In 1949 *TIME* put him on its cover and called him "the undisputed No. 1 performer on U.S. TV".[6](https://time.com/7024579/saturday-night-movie-cast-real-people/)
The show's popularity coincided with, and is widely credited for, a rapid expansion of television ownership in the United States: from about 400,000 sets when the show began in 1948 to over ten million by the 1951–52 season.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002)
**The first telethon.** In April 1949 Berle hosted what is credited as the first telethon, an NBC broadcast running from 12 p.m. on April 9 to 3:55 a.m. on April 10. That 16-hour broadcast brought in roughly $1,100,000, equivalent to over $11 million now, benefiting the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund, and *LIFE* described it as "probably the longest sustained vaudeville performance on record".[4](https://time.com/4932096/first-telethon/)
**Integration of the program.** Berle threatened not to go on air unless his sponsor allowed the Four Step Brothers, an African American act, to appear on his program; permission came ten minutes before show time. During the segregation era he challenged the exclusion of Black performers from the screen and afterward was able to book acts such as [Lena Horne](https://www.edgepedia.org/lena-horne) and [Bill Robinson](https://www.edgepedia.org/bill-robinson).[12](https://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/milton-berle/bio/3030418668/) • [3](https://www.bates.edu/museum/exhibitions/milton-berle-biography/)
## After the peak
By the end of the third season Berle cut back his schedule, hosting the program only three weeks out of every four; ratings declined and Texaco ended its sponsorship in 1953, prompting title changes.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) • [16](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/texaco-star-theater) The network had, however, given him an unprecedented lifetime contract, a 30-year deal paying $200,000 a year.[5](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html) • [1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) Under it he tried a series of shorter-lived shows from California: *The Milton Berle Show* (1955–56), *Kraft Music Hall* (1958–59), *Jackpot Bowling* (1960–61), and a revived *The Milton Berle Show* in 1966.[5](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html) • [1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002)
His peak years ran from 1948 to 1956; as television comedy changed, his false noses, frantic costume changes, and aggressive jokes came to seem dated, and he later said, "People say I owe a lot to television. The fact is I was a star long before television. What TV made me is unemployed."[8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries) Through the 1960s and 1970s he worked as a guest star on television and in nightclubs in Las Vegas, Chicago, and Miami Beach, and appeared in films including *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World*, *The Muppet Movie*, and [Woody Allen](https://www.edgepedia.org/woody-allen)'s *[Broadway Danny Rose](https://www.edgepedia.org/broadway-danny-rose)* (1984).[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002)
At 77 he had quadruple bypass heart surgery, after which he relaunched his career as a veteran celebrity, with club dates in Atlantic City and Las Vegas and the 1988 television sitcom *Side By Side* with [Sid Caesar](https://www.edgepedia.org/sid-caesar).[8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries)
## Writing and recognition
Berle wrote the autobiographies *Out of My Trunk* and *Milton Berle: An Autobiography*, the joke books *Milton Berle's Private Joke File* and *More of the Best of Milton Berle's Private Joke File*, and the novel *Earthquake*; his honors included a 1979 Emmy Award.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) His papers, spanning 1906 to 2002 and filling about 128 linear feet, are held by the Library of Congress.[7](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1457) He was among the first subjects interviewed for the Television Academy Foundation's oral history archive, at age 88.[13](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/news/dan-pasternack-reflects-on-his-interview-with-milton-berle-30-years-later)
## Personal life
Berle was twice married to and divorced from the showgirl Joyce Matthews; their first marriage ended in divorce in 1947, by which time they had adopted a child, and they remarried and divorced again.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries) • [14](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/28/milton-berle-mr-television-dies-at-93/2048c111-f2c6-4693-a53a-6f51ba18d498/) He married Ruth Cosgrove on December 9, 1953; the marriage lasted until her death on April 20, 1989, and they had adopted a son, William.[15](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000926/bio) • [8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries) In 1991 he married Lorna Adams, a fashion designer, who survived him, along with his daughter Victoria, his son William, and two stepdaughters.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries) • [14](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/28/milton-berle-mr-television-dies-at-93/2048c111-f2c6-4693-a53a-6f51ba18d498/)
He died of colon cancer at his home in Los Angeles on March 27, 2002, having learned of the disease the previous year.[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002) • [14](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/28/milton-berle-mr-television-dies-at-93/2048c111-f2c6-4693-a53a-6f51ba18d498/)
## In later culture
Berle appeared on the cover of *TIME* in 1949 and remains a reference point in comedy history. In the 2024 film *[Saturday Night](https://www.edgepedia.org/saturday-night-2024-film)*, about the first night of *Saturday Night Live*, he is played by J.K. Simmons as a figure of the old guard of television comedy.[6](https://time.com/7024579/saturday-night-movie-cast-real-people/)
## References
1. [Berle, Milton 1908–2002, Contemporary Authors via Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/berle-milton-1908-2002)
2. [Milton Berle, California Museum, inductee biography](https://californiamuseum.org/inductee/milton-berle/)
3. [Milton Berle Biography, Bates College Museum of Art](https://www.bates.edu/museum/exhibitions/milton-berle-biography/)
4. [This Is How Telethons Became a Fundraising Tradition, TIME](https://time.com/4932096/first-telethon/)
5. [From the Archives: Milton Berle, 93; Legendary Comic Trouper Dies, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html)
6. [A Who's Who of the Famous Faces in Saturday Night, TIME](https://time.com/7024579/saturday-night-movie-cast-real-people/)
7. [Milton Berle Papers, finding aid, Music Division, Library of Congress](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1457)
8. [Milton Berle, obituary, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/29/guardianobituaries)
9. [Present at the Conception, Los Angeles Times (1998)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-may-17-ca-50499-story.html)
10. [Texaco Star Theater, Research Starters, EBSCOhost](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/arts-and-entertainment/texaco-star-theater)
11. [The Milton Berle Show, Encyclopedia of American Television (Lackman, 2003)](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Encyclopedia-of-American-Television-Lackman-2003.pdf)
12. [Milton Berle Biography, TV Guide](https://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/milton-berle/bio/3030418668/)
13. [Dan Pasternack Reflects on His Interview With Milton Berle 30 Years Later, Television Academy Interviews](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/news/dan-pasternack-reflects-on-his-interview-with-milton-berle-30-years-later)
14. [Milton Berle, 'Mr. Television,' Dies at 93, The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/28/milton-berle-mr-television-dies-at-93/2048c111-f2c6-4693-a53a-6f51ba18d498/)
15. [Milton Berle Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000926/bio)
16. [Texaco Star Theater, interviews.televisionacademy.com](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/texaco-star-theater)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 1940s to 1960s › Surnames A to Bo*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license