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Milton Berle (né Milton Berlinger) (July 12, 1908 – March 27, 2002) was an extremely popular Jewish American comedian, whose career spanned vaudeville, radio, television, and film. His first great television success was as the headliner for Texaco Star Theater on NBC from 1948 to June 14, 1955 (as the Buick-Berle Show when Buick became the main sponsor in 1953). Berle became known as "Mr. Television" and "Uncle Miltie".
By 1960 he was unable to find new television work, so he played Las Vegas, made nightclub appearances, appeared on Broadway in Herb Gardner's The Goodbye People in 1968, and appeared in many films (mostly as himself). These included Always Leave Them Laughing (1949) with Virginia Mayo and Bert Lahr, Let's Make Love, with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand (1960); It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963); The Loved One (1965); The Oscar (1966); Lepke (1975); Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose (1984); and Driving Me Crazy (1991). He also had guest roles television series' such as The Jack Benny Show, Make Room for Daddy, The Lucy Show, Batman, The Big Valley, Get Smart, The Mod Squad, Ironside, Mannix, McCloud, The Love Boat, CHiPs, Fame, Fantasy Island, Gimme a Break, Diff'rent Strokes, Murder, She Wrote, Beverly Hills 90210, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Nanny, Roseanne, Sister, Sister, and many others.
In later life he presided as master of ceremonies for many Friar's Club roasts and other gatherings.
Berle had one of the greatest joke collections in the world, with about 6.5 million jokes on computer. The books Milton Berle's Private Joke File and The Rest of the Best of Milton Berle's Private Joke File each had 10,000 of these jokes.
He was born in a five-story walkup at 68 West 118th Street in New York City. Milton Berle was a Jew. and one of his best remembered jokes was "Any time a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies."
Berle was one of the first seven people to be inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984.
Milton Berle died of colon cancer was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.