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July 1908, New York, New York / 27 March 2002, Los Angeles,
California.
Milton 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.
Berle appeared as a child actor in silent films, beginning with The
Perils of Pauline (1914), filmed in Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Pearl
White. The director told Berle that he would portray a little boy
who would be thrown from a moving train. In Milton Berle: An
Autobiography (1975), he explained, "I was scared shitless, even
when he went on to tell me that Pauline would save my life. Which is
exactly what happened, except that at the crucial moment they threw
a bundle of rags instead of me from the train. I bet there are a lot
of comedians around today who are sorry about that."
He appeared at the Palace Theatre in New York in 1931, then in night
clubs and theatres. He appeared in the Broadway musicals "Saluta",
"See My Lawyer", and "Ziegfeld Follies of 1943". His television
debut was on experimental scanning-wheel television in Chicago in
1929. By 1934 he was on radio. |
