Entertainment icons Milton Berle and Billy Wilder die
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN L.A. Jewish Journal Two Jewish pioneers of 20th-century popular culture, comedian Milton Berle and director Billy Wilder, died here last week. Wilder, who fled the Nazis to become one of Hollywood’s greatest (and most caustic) filmmakers, died of pneumonia March 27 at his Beverly Hills home. He was 95. Berle, the stogie-smoking vaudevillian who became America’s first TV star, died at his West Los Angeles home March 27 after battling colon cancer. He was 93. Six-time Oscar winner Wilder, whose protagonists were often alcoholics or gigolos, grew up in his family’s Galacian hotel, where, he said, he “learned many things about human nature, none of them favorable.” He was born in 1906 in the Polish town of Sucha, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a cocky journalist-turned-screenwriter in Berlin in 1933, he sold his belongings for a few hundred dollars and was on a train to Paris the day after the Nazis burned the Reichstag. Arriving penniless in Hollywood a year later, he taught himself English by listening to the radio, but he had less success convincing his relatives to leave Europe. When he returned to Germany to help de-Nazify the theater in 1945, he discovered that his stepfather, mother and grandmother had died in Auschwitz. When a director asked if a Nazi could play Jesus in a passion play, he replied sardonically, “Permission granted, but the nails have to be real.” Wilder went on to write and direct movies that exposed the darkest recesses of human nature, dissecting the underbelly of American life in classics such as “Double Indemnity” and “Sunset Boulevard.” The versatile filmmaker also triumphed in the genre of farce (“Some Like It Hot”) and sophisticated romantic comedies such as “Sabrina” and “The Seven Year Itch,” which featured the famous shot of Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate. When studios stopped hiring him after a string of 1970s box office flops, Wilder spent the remainder of his days pining to direct and accepting lifetime tributes. But he never lost his sardonic edge. He dubbed the tributes — including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s prestigious 1987 Irving Thalberg prize — the “Quick, before they croak! awards.” Wilder is survived by his wife, the former Audrey Young, and a daughter, Victoria. No funeral was held, but a tribute is planned later in the year. Berle, dubbed “Uncle Miltie” and “Mr. Television” for addicting Americans to the tube, was born Mendel Berlinger, the son of Moses and Sarah (a.k.a. Sadie) in a five-story Harlem walk-up in 1908. One of his earliest memories was of his Jewish mother bouncing him on her knee and telling him, “Make me laugh.” By the age of 5, young Milton — spurred by stage mother Sadie — had won a children’s Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest. By 13, he’d changed his Jewish last name and was performing vaudeville on Broadway. After decades of working as a top theater and nightclub performer, Berle was hired to bring his irreverent brand of humor to NBC’s variety show “Texaco Star Theater” in 1948. He promptly drew fans for such antics as prancing in drag, wobbling on high heels, grinning to reveal blackened teeth and dubbing himself “The Thief of Bad Gags.” After his television reign ended in the 1960s, Berle went on to make movies such as 1963’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and to play himself in Woody Allen’s 1984 comedy “Broadway Danny Rose.” In later years, he appeared as a master of ceremonies at celebrity roasts and was a fixture at the Friars Club, where he served as president and laid on the Jewish shtick. “You’re probably wondering why we’re roasting Mickey Rooney,” he said during one affair. “It’s because we ran out of Jews!” A private funeral was held Monday, attended by some 300. Berle was buried at the Jewish cemetery Hillside Memorial Park and is survived by his wife, the former Lorna Adams; a son, William; a daughter, Victoria Walton; stepdaughters Susan Moll and Leslie Sweet; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.