Milton Berle was born Milton Berlinger on July 12, 1908, in New York City, to Sarah (Glantz) and Moses Berlinger, a paint and varnish salesman. He was educated at New York Professional Children’s School and began performing at age 5. His first stage appearance was in “Florodora” in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He appeared at the Palace Theater in New York in 1931, then in nightclubs and theaters. He appeared in the Broadway musicals “Saluta”, “See My Lawyer” and “Ziegfeld Follies of 1943”. His television debut was on experimental scanning-wheel television in Chicago in 1929. By 1934, he was on radio, was heard regularly on “The Rudy Vallee Hour”, and attracted publicity as a regular on “The Gillette Original Community Sing”.
