Milton took vaudeville, which, if you look up 'vaudeville' in the dictionary, right alongside of it, it says 'Milton Berle' - and he made it just a tremendous party.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There were a great many in vaudeville - people who never quite came through. But they had their place, and they filled it. They kept theatres open. Those pan-timers, those interstate-timers, those four-a-dayers, those six-a-dayers - they were an integral part of that endearing merry-go-round called vaudeville.
I was very interested in vaudeville. It was the only sort of discipline that was a five-minute act on stage, which is what I really enjoyed and saw myself doing. And I bought books on it.
Vaudeville was characterized by sunny optimism, acts that were uplifting, cheerful, and clean. It provided a fanciful, magical escape, but after Black Friday, the tone of American entertainment changed almost overnight.
Right when I started in show... Milton Berle was my first idol. When I was a kid, I went to see Milton at Lowe's State, and I never laughed so much, and I said, 'That's who I want to be; that's what I want to be.'
If vaudeville had died, television was the box they put it in.
It's strange because even in the vaudeville days, ventriloquists were never the main attraction. They were the guys brought out to stand in front of the curtain while sets were being changed. Ventriloquism wasn't even celebrated as an art until Edgar Bergen came along in the 1930s.
The choreographer for the Milton Berle show wanted me to audition. I walked away from that.
My mother was in vaudeville, but after she had her children, she quit working.
There were some television sets back in the '50s, but they were expensive. People would gather at the rich guy's apartment down the hall to watch Milton Berle on his 10-inch black-and-white screen.
The only ones who like Milton Berle are his mother - and the public.