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"The Thief of Bad Gags," Milton Berle has made a career out stealing other people's jokes, perhaps the longest running element of his high-energy stage persona. His rapid-fire delivery of one joke following another, like ammunition from a machine gun, has stood him in good stead, fostering a career that has lasted almost as long as Berle has been alive. He was born Milton Berlinger in New York City on July 12, 1905. His mother, Sarah Berlinger, attended to every detail of his career, and no stage mother in the business could compete with her devotion to her son's career, or match her drive or tenacity in seeing he achieved her goal of stardom. When Bob Hope accused Berle of stealing his material, Sarah indignantly replied, "My son would never stoop so low. My son stoops high!" Before Berle was old enough to speak (and barely old enough to walk), she had him doing child's modeling, his most famous as the little boy in the Buster Brown shoe ads, an icon that would last into the late '5...