Larger Than Life Facts About Milton Berle, The King Of TV
Would there be television, if it weren't for Milton Berle? It’s a legitimate question because, in its heyday, Berle’s Texaco Star Theater was so popular that it doubled the number of TVs in American homes. It also brought Berle to superstardom and all of its traps: Divorces, womanizing, and just throwing his rather large ego around. And, speaking of large, there are certainly enough rumors about that as well. Well then, hang on tight for some enormous facts about Milton Berle: television’s very big deal.
Milton Berle Facts
1. He Knew At An Early Age
Mendel Berlinger was born in 1908 and grew up on W. 118th Street in Harlem. His parents were as far from show business as they could be: His father sold paint and his mother was a store detective.
Berlinger didn’t like the sound of his name so, at the tender age of 16, he changed it to a more show biz-friendly moniker: Milton Berle. Like a fortune-teller, he somehow knew that fame was in his future.
2. He Made An Impression
Berle’s first foray into show business occurred when he was just five years old. Young Berle entered the kid’s division of a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and took home the trophy—a tin cup.
This minor success led Berle to be a child model for Buster Brown shoes and, with the help of his pushy stage mother Sarah, he then struck gold: a role in a silent picture.
3. He Had A Terrifying First Gig
It wasn’t much of a stretch for young Berle to play the role of “little boy” in his first motion picture. However, he almost went ballistic when he found out what he had to do in the film. The movie, The Perils of Pauline, had big plans for the five-year-old Berle. The director told little Miltie that Pauline would save him—but only after he fell from a moving train.
