More thoughts on Mr. Television: Milton Berle had the reputation of hogging the spotlight, stealing scenes and insinuating himself into other acts. On his legendary variety show and in his stage shows that predated it, he would bring on great performers but rarely allow them to have the stage to themselves. The jugglers would only get to juggle a little before Uncle Miltie came bounding out in juggler garb to burlesque and make a shambles of their routine. "It always had to be about him," George Burns once told me. "If the bit wasn't about him, he made it about him."
This was not always done out of ego — or, if it was, it was also with the intent of making a better show. When criticized for the practice, Berle would get defensive. He'd argue that, by injecting himself into another performer's act, he kept that performer on stage longer than they would otherwise have remained, and gave them the status of co-starring with the star of the show. Given his rate of success, it's hard to argue that he was always — or even, usually — in the wrong.
Still, he was an enormous glutton for attention. You know the joke about, "The most dangerous place in the world is anywhere between So-and-So and a camera?" The first time I ever heard it was at a lunch at the Friars Club with a wonderful, now departed comedian-impressionist named George Kirby. Berle was the former "Abbot" of the Friars — a kind of ceremonial grand poobah — and he'd still table-hop during mealtime and glad-hand everyone.
He was at our table when someone across the room whipped out a home video camera to record some sort of greeting to an absent friend. The greeting was not supposed to involve Mr. Berle but, like lightning, he sprinted over, got in the shot and did his famous "walrus" shtick, inserting a cigar under his upper lip like a tusk. Kirby shook his head, turned back to me and said, "The most dangerous place in the world is anywhere between Milton and a camera." Indeed.
A little later, Entertainment Tonight set up to tape a few interviews with the comedians present. Berle was first up and he proceeded to do something that I mentioned in my article here on Red Skelton; something almost every comedian of his generation seemed to do, given the chance. As the camera rolled, Berle talked about there being too much smut in comedy. "I tell all the young comics, 'Don't work blue,' he lectured. "If you have talent, you don't need four letter words and filth."
Then the camera was turned off and Berle resumed what he'd been doing before the interview: Telling dirty jokes. The cleanest one I recall was the one about the newlyweds who sunbathed nude on their honeymoon. That night, the groom's privates were horribly sunburned so he went into the kitchen, took out a container of milk and plunged his member into it. His new bride wandered into the room, saw this and said, "Oh! I always wondered how men fill those things." Uncle Miltie told the joke, then looked down at his lap and added, "I'd need a dairy." (I almost played naïve — like I didn't get the reference — but I was afraid he'd show me what it meant.)
Every cast member of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World who's ever mentioned his name in interviews has spoken of his uncanny ability to always be the last one out of every shot, thereby maximizing his screen time. A TV director I once worked with told me a story that pertained to this ability…
Berle kept adding words, adding lines to his part. He had this one long speech and every rehearsal, it got longer and longer, no matter how we told him to cut it down. Finally, we got into taping and it turned into an extended monologue. He simply would not not add all those extra words. So I figured, "Well, I'll find some cuts in editing…you know, cut away from him right after the beginning, drop the whole middle, and then cut back to him for the last few, crucial lines." Well, I couldn't do that. I got into editing and that's when I realized what he did.
During the speech, he took out a cigar, slowly unwrapped it and put it into his mouth. I couldn't cut the middle of the monologue out because then, the cigar would have appeared out of nowhere…and I couldn't cut the whole speech out because the last line or two were essential to the plot. So I had to leave the whole thing in, and I'm 100% convinced he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew I wanted to cut, he knew where I'd want to cut and he knew how to fix it so I couldn't cut.
Okay, those are all negative or semi-negative stories. There are a lot of good things that ought to be said about Milton Berle, starting with the incredible number of performers who owed their careers to his help and encouragement. He even found talent on the street. One day, back when he was headlining at Loew's New York State Theater, he wandered between shows into a nearby arcade. There, a printer had a little set-up cranking out business cards and letterheads and he told Berle that he dabbled in joke-telling on the weekends. They became friends and Berle began steering the job offers he couldn't take to the printer, whose name was Henny Youngman.
Another time, also in his stage show days, Berle struck up a friendship with a kid who worked the counter at a luncheonette near the theater. The kid's name was Jack Gellman and he did impressions and pantomimes so well that Berle hired him and put him in his act…but not before changing his name to Jack Gilford. There are dozens of these tales.
And he really did invent an awful lot of TV comedy, back at a time when both budgets and technology were pitiful. Part of his reputation as "The Thief of Bad Gags" came about because his show, The Texaco Star Theater, initially couldn't afford much in the way of writers. To fill that weekly hour, Berle dredged up every old routine he could remember and, in some cases, they were sketches and monologues that were more-or-less public domain among comedians, but in which some comics — perhaps jealous of his success — claimed proprietary interest.
Later on, when the program's success kicked loose some funds, Berle began buying the rights to use some of the classic comedy sketches that had been written for Broadway revues. The material was properly bought and paid-for but some of the comedians who'd performed in those revues — Bert Lahr being the most vocal, Berle claimed — saw it as Milton stealing "their" signature routines. When I heard Berle talk of this — decades after Lahr and his other detractors were dead and buried — he still turned crimson over it. He said, "I was the first guy on television to pay writers and to pay them well."
I'm not certain that Berle was the first TV performer to pay writers but he was surely among the first…and he was the first to do so many things, including causing America to stay home and watch the tube. The surviving kinescopes of those broadcasts have not aged well — all the outrageous costumes, constant mugging and everyone breaking up. But this was state-of-the-art live television of the time: Berle was way ahead of what everyone else was doing. It wasn't sophisticated but it was easy to watch. (He always told the writers to make the jokes "lappy," which meant to lay them in the viewers' laps.)
After a few years of the Texaco program and a few successors, he established another "first." He was the first performer to ever wear out his welcome on television. By the time he was knocked off the air — by Phil Silvers playing S/Sgt. Ernest T. Bilko — Berle had demonstrated that it was quite possible for America to tire of someone. He had plenty to do for the rest of his life — movies, clubs, guest shots, the occasional series, even some dramatic roles — but he never again reached the apogee he'd reached as Mr. Television. No one did.
I'm writing all this quickly and off the top of my head. If I sound conflicted, I am. Like many of my generation, I never laughed that much at Milton Berle and there was a time when I wondered why this pushy guy was so revered. In time, I think I came to understand that it had to do with innovation and longevity, two qualities that are rarely found — at least, together — in the comedy stars who began in television. Milton Berle was of another era, already an established performer before he or anyone appeared on TV, forced to invent and reinvent in front of an entire nation. Fortunately, he was a master showman and more than equal to the task.
The few times I got to meet him, he was very nice to me and quite willing to dive into his uncanny memory and summon up anecdote after anecdote, most of them probably true, at least to some extent. All in all, I enjoyed being around the man. Of course, I never got between him and a camera.