Milton Berle
Recorded November 10th, 1970 - 21 min
Before his pioneering television career, Uncle Milty spent a lot of time in radio. He had a number of his own programs throughout the 1940s after a career in vaudeville and film. He was born July 12, 1908 and was 62 at the time of our visit in the Green Room at the Mill Run Theatre in suburban Chicago. On stage with him, and briefly joining our conversation are Chicago Cubs’ Ernie Banks and Ron Santo. Mr. Berle died March 27, 2002 at age 93.
Milton Berle Show - 8/5/47 - Salute to the Great Outdoors
Did you enjoy the interview? Listen to Milton Berle on the "Milton Berle Show" on August 5th, 1947.
July 20, 2011 at 12:07 pm
This was a great interview! When Milton Berle passed, we lost a conduit that stretched from silent films to Ziegfeld Follies to Broadway to radio to television and way beyond.
Milton wrote one autobiography, which I had the pleasure and privilege to read. He could have written ten autobiographies and still had a ton of material for more!
I had the great pleasure to meet Milton back in the ’70s, when he was appearing with Jack Albertson in “The Sunshine Boys” at a dinner theatre in the Chicago area. After the show, he was kind enough to sign my copy of the book, “How Sweet it Was.” He signed it, “Love, Milton.” That’s the kind of guy he was.
We got our first TV in 1949; before that, we used to go upstairs to the Gelman’s flat every Tuesday night at 8 and watch Milton Berle with them; after we got our TV, we could watch Milton in our own appartment.
I think that Milton Berle and Dagmar were responsible for selling more TVs in the late ’40s than anyone else.
Sincerely,
George Littlefield 🙂