Milton Berle (MIL-ton BURL) was born Milton Berlinger in Harlem to Moses (Moe) and Sarah (Sadie) Glantz Berlinger. Moses worked in a paint store on First Avenue in New York City owned by his Jewish father Jacob, who had migrated to America from Germany, in 1849. Sarah’s ancestry reached back to Poland, and her father was a cobbler; she worked as a store detective. Berle was born at home at 68 West 118th Street; his older brothers were Philip Louis, Francis, and Jacob, and his younger sister was Rosalind Marianna. The Berlingers struggled to make ends meet, living in a flat surrounded by Italians, Jews, Germans, and blacks. Berle and his siblings went to the Imperial Nickelodeon and lived next door to George Jessel. Out of family necessity, Berle went to work when he was five years old after winning a contest showcasing amateur talent. His stagestruck mother took him for auditions, and he received children’s parts beginning in silent films, such as The Perils of Pauline (1914) with Pearl White, and continued with Bunny’s Little Brother (1914) with John Bunny, Tess of the Storm Country (1922) with Mary Pickford, Birthright (1920) with Flora Finch, Love’s Penalty (1921) with Hope Hampton, and Ruth of the Range (1923) with Ruth Roland. He received acclaim in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), starring Pickford; The Mark of Zorro (1920), starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.; and Tillie’s Punctured Romance(1914), starring Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and Marie Dressler.
