Return of an Old Ham

Eleven years ago in the predawn of TV, Milton Berle mused: "I'm not the manufactured Broadway comedian any more. I'm going back, back to my real talent. I began as a dramatic actor, you know." Instead, for eight razzle-dazzle years in which they both became U.S. living-room fixtures, TV made him a prisoner of comedy. Last week, after two years of well-paid retirement as a television personality,* Berle, 49, finally went back to his "real talent."

For his TV debut as a dramatic actor, he chose Material Witness, by Henry (Time Limit) Denker, and the title role of an average householder who sweated out 50 dreary minutes in fear that gangland killers would learn of his presence at one of their crimes. The show was just another dipperful of clabber out of Kraft Theater's antique churn. Berle played the shallowly written role with egregious self-control. Conscious of his dignity as a TV elder statesman, he liked the part because it was, said he proudly, "something unbrash, unflippant and unaggressive--I wanted to get away from the Berle trademarks."

"Hey, Hey." But behind the scenes not even Berle could erase the image of Berle. Said Technical Director Bob Hanna, who worked Berle's first TV shows ten years ago: "He really hasn't changed. Only he doesn't have the whistle he used to wear around his neck to get everyone quiet. He's an old ham--the minute he gets an audience he starts performing." During rehearsal breaks Berle clowned brassily. "Look," he exclaimed to the crew, after the first run-through, "I did it all without a Teleprompter." He half-sprinted from set to set, waving technicians aside with "Hey, hey, look out!" And, when he learned that a technician's wife had just had a baby, he presented the new father with a cigar.

Though he no longer called camera shots or helped shift scenery as in the ebullient old days, Berle managed to make clear who was the star of the show. He squawked that the air conditioning in NBC's big Brooklyn studio was giving him laryngitis, edgily dressed down a news photographer: "You were taking pictures all during that scene, baby. You know this is a dress rehearsal." Once he stopped rehearsals because he kept hearing noises on the set. "I can't go on," he complained. "There's too much talking." Said a technician: "That guy--he'll say he can't hear lines right next to him, but he can hear a pin drop on the other side of the set."

"Shush, Baby." Instead of an ego-massaging entourage of yesmen, the old ham had only his personal valet, Lorenzo Chestnut, by his side. In Chestnut's hands were the familiar Berle off-screen props: a soiled towel for mopping the star, a glass of water, a fistful of Dunhill's Larranaga cigars with big white billing on the cellophane: "SPECIALLY SELECTED FOR MILTON BERLE." Said Lorenzo: "I keep one lit for him when he comes off." As Berle waited glumly for his cue, he scowled at a monitor and frazzled the seven-in. Larranaga. "Shush, baby, shush," he said to no one in particular. On cue, he dashed on-camera, tossing his cigar into the air behind him. Chestnut winced: "I lost that one. I just wasn't there to get it, and he threw it on the floor."

Even to Berle himself, Berle had not really changed. Said he: "It's all a matter of acting--comedy, drama--but I'm still the same. I'm a performer." Then, still without definite plans for his TV future, he got ready to leave for Miami and a nightclub date as a comedian.

* Under a complex NBC contract, Berle is guaranteed an average $60,000 a year for the next 23 years. All he must do in return is make half a dozen more guest appearances.

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