Berle Adams

Adams was born in 1917 to immigrants from Russia on the West Side of Chicago, the son of Etta (née Block), a homemaker, and Jack Adasky, a milkman. His mother died when he was 18 months old. He went to Crane Technical High School. Adams became attracted to late night remote radio broadcasts of America's swing bands, including those of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Bob Crosby, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman. While still in high school, Adams began renting speaker systems and booking bands, school proms, weddings, men's and women's benevolent organizations, fire department and chamber of commerce socials.

With support from established bandleader Al Trace, Adams briefly worked as a band booker. Adams left the music business temporarily, married his neighborhood sweetheart Lucy Leven, and began selling life insurance door-to-door. Insurance sales during the Depression proved unprofitable. Adams talked his way into a job for Varsity Records, promoting the tiny company's little-known artists for space on the city's jukeboxes against stars recording for industry giants like RCA Victor and Decca.

His wife Lucy Adams died of cancer on April 1, 1990. Both she and her husband had, long before her illness, become interested in cancer research. Adams joined Cancer Research Associates, the support group of the University of Southern California's Norris Cancer Center and Hospital, and in 1985 he became the organization's president. The Adams family—Berle, his children Helen and Richard, and their families, established the Berle and Lucy Adams Chair in Cancer Research at USC's Keck School of Medicine. His cousin was Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block. Services were held at Mount Sinai Memorial Park.

In 1995, Adams self-published his autobiography, A Sucker for Talent. In 2009, he died in Los Angeles at age 92.