Gertrude Berg
Encyclopedia
Gertrude Berg was an American actress and screenwriter
. A pioneer of classic radio
, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs (1929), later known as The Goldbergs
.
, and attended public schools. She married Lewis Berg in 1918; they had two children, Cherney (1922–2003) and Harriet (1926–2003). She learned theater while producing skits at her father's Catskills Mountains resort
in Fleischmanns, New York
. She developed a semi-autobiographical skit, portraying a Jewish family in the New York tenements, into a radio show. On November 20, 1929, a 15-minute episode of The Rise of the Goldbergs was first broadcast on the NBC radio network. She started at $75 a week. Less than two years later, in the heart of the Great Depression
, she let the sponsor propose a salary and was told, "Mrs. Berg, we can't pay a cent over $2,000 a week."
Berg became inextricably identified as Molly Goldberg, the bighearted matriarch of her fictitious New York family who moved to Connecticut
as a symbol of Jewish-American upward mobility. She wrote practically all the show's radio episodes (more than 5000) plus a Broadway
adaptation, Me and Molly
(1948). It took considerable convincing, but Berg finally prevailed upon CBS
to let her bring The Goldbergs to television
in 1949. Early episodes portrayed the Goldberg family openly and personally struggling to adapt to American life. Just as Berg started in her autobiography, she chose to depict her Jewish grandfather’s worship to America and the new world in her first radio broadcast show. Her characters Molly, Jake, Sammy and Rosie emphasized her day to day stories of Jewish immigration to America.
Immigrant life and the Goldberg family struggle were familiar and relatable to most families during this point in American history. Radio seemed to lend a hand to new settlers and produced a common place to tie nationalism and families together. The program's victory is largely because of the familiar feelings of the American people portrayed in the program's scripts. The first season script was later published into a book form.
Berg won the first ever Emmy Award
for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series her debut year on the network—her twentieth consecutive year of playing the role—and the show stayed in production for five years.
The Goldbergs ran into trouble in 1951, during the McCarthy Era. Co-star Philip Loeb
(Molly's husband, patriarch Jake Goldberg) was one of the performers named in Red Channels
: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television and blacklisted
as a result. Loeb resigned rather than cause Berg trouble. He reportedly received a generous severance package from the show, but it didn't prevent him from sinking into the depression that ultimately drove him to suicide in 1955. The Goldbergs returned a year after Loeb departed the show and continued until 1954, after which Berg also wrote and produced a syndicated film version. The show remained in syndicated reruns for another few years, after one year of production and 39 episodes (it aired on some stations as Molly).
In 1959, Berg won the Tony Award
for Best Actress for her performance in A Majority of One
. She made guest appearances on The Martha Raye Show
and The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
. On February 6, 1958, she appeared on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
. In 1961, Berg won the Sarah Siddons Award
for her work in Chicago theatre
. Berg also published a best-selling memoir, Molly and Me, in 1961. That same year, she made a last stab at television success in the Four Star Television
situation comedy
, Mrs. G. Goes to College
(retitled The Gertrude Berg Show at midseason). Her costars were Cedric Hardwicke
, Mary Wickes
and Marion Ross
. Berg played a 62-year-old widow who decides to attend college.
Berg was also a songwriter
. Her composition, "That Wonderful Someone", even found its way into the repertoire of country music singer Patsy Cline
, appearing on Cline's 1957 debut album.
's 2009 documentary, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
, deals with Berg's career, and to an extent, her personal life.
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. A pioneer of classic radio
Old-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs (1929), later known as The Goldbergs
The Goldbergs
The Goldbergs is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly.-Radio:...
.
Career
Berg was born Tilly Edelstein in 1898 in HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, and attended public schools. She married Lewis Berg in 1918; they had two children, Cherney (1922–2003) and Harriet (1926–2003). She learned theater while producing skits at her father's Catskills Mountains resort
Borscht Belt
Borscht Belt, or Jewish Alps, is a colloquial term for the mostly defunct summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties in upstate New York that were a popular vacation spot for New York City Jews from the 1920s through the 1960s.-Name:The name comes from...
in Fleischmanns, New York
Fleischmanns, New York
Fleischmanns is a village in Delaware County, New York, United States. The population was 351 at the 2000 census. Fleischmanns is in the town of Middletown.- History :Early settlers of this area came from Germany, England, Holland and Ireland...
. She developed a semi-autobiographical skit, portraying a Jewish family in the New York tenements, into a radio show. On November 20, 1929, a 15-minute episode of The Rise of the Goldbergs was first broadcast on the NBC radio network. She started at $75 a week. Less than two years later, in the heart of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, she let the sponsor propose a salary and was told, "Mrs. Berg, we can't pay a cent over $2,000 a week."
Berg became inextricably identified as Molly Goldberg, the bighearted matriarch of her fictitious New York family who moved to Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
as a symbol of Jewish-American upward mobility. She wrote practically all the show's radio episodes (more than 5000) plus a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
adaptation, Me and Molly
Me and Molly
Me and Molly is a play by Gertrude Berg which is based on Berg's long running radio drama The Goldbergs. The work premiered on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre on February 26, 1948. It closed after 156 performances on July 10, 1948...
(1948). It took considerable convincing, but Berg finally prevailed upon CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
to let her bring The Goldbergs to television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
in 1949. Early episodes portrayed the Goldberg family openly and personally struggling to adapt to American life. Just as Berg started in her autobiography, she chose to depict her Jewish grandfather’s worship to America and the new world in her first radio broadcast show. Her characters Molly, Jake, Sammy and Rosie emphasized her day to day stories of Jewish immigration to America.
Immigrant life and the Goldberg family struggle were familiar and relatable to most families during this point in American history. Radio seemed to lend a hand to new settlers and produced a common place to tie nationalism and families together. The program's victory is largely because of the familiar feelings of the American people portrayed in the program's scripts. The first season script was later published into a book form.
Berg won the first ever Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series her debut year on the network—her twentieth consecutive year of playing the role—and the show stayed in production for five years.
The Goldbergs ran into trouble in 1951, during the McCarthy Era. Co-star Philip Loeb
Philip Loeb
Philip Loeb , was an American stage, film, and television actor who was blacklisted under McCarthyism and committed suicide.- Background :...
(Molly's husband, patriarch Jake Goldberg) was one of the performers named in Red Channels
Red Channels
Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television is an anti-Communist tract published in the United States at the height of the Red Scare...
: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television and blacklisted
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or...
as a result. Loeb resigned rather than cause Berg trouble. He reportedly received a generous severance package from the show, but it didn't prevent him from sinking into the depression that ultimately drove him to suicide in 1955. The Goldbergs returned a year after Loeb departed the show and continued until 1954, after which Berg also wrote and produced a syndicated film version. The show remained in syndicated reruns for another few years, after one year of production and 39 episodes (it aired on some stations as Molly).
In 1959, Berg won the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Actress for her performance in A Majority of One
A Majority of One
-Plot:The comedy involves Mrs. Jacoby, a Jewish widow from Brooklyn, New York, and Koichi Asano, a millionaire widower from Tokyo. Mrs. Jacoby is sailing to Japan with her daughter and foreign service officer son-in-law who is being posted to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo...
. She made guest appearances on The Martha Raye Show
The Martha Raye Show
The Martha Raye Show is an hour-long comedy/variety show which aired live on NBC from January 23, 1954, to May 29, 1956. The series was hosted by the late Martha Raye, a Montana native, who often called herself "The Big Mouth." Her boyfriend on the program and a foil for her humor was portrayed by...
and The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom is a half-hour variety show that aired on ABC from October 3, 1957 to June 23, 1960, starring the young singer Pat Boone and a host of top-name guest stars. The program was of course sponsored by Chevrolet...
. On February 6, 1958, she appeared on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The Ford Show
The Ford Show is a half-hour comedy/variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired in color on NBC television on Thursday evenings from October 4, 1956 to June 29, 1961....
. In 1961, Berg won the Sarah Siddons Award
Sarah Siddons Award
The Sarah Siddons Society is an American non-profit organization founded in 1952 by prominent Chicago theatre patrons with the goal of promoting excellence in the theatre. The Society presents the Sarah Siddons Award annually to an actor for an outstanding performance in a Chicago theatre production...
for her work in Chicago theatre
Chicago theatre
Chicago theatre refers not only to theatre performed in Chicago, Illinois but also to the movement in that town that saw a number of small, meagerly-funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for tours sent out from...
. Berg also published a best-selling memoir, Molly and Me, in 1961. That same year, she made a last stab at television success in the Four Star Television
Four Star Television
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer, the company produced many well-known shows of the early days of...
situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
, Mrs. G. Goes to College
Mrs. G. Goes to College
Mrs. G. Goes To College is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from October 4, 1961 to April 5, 1962...
(retitled The Gertrude Berg Show at midseason). Her costars were Cedric Hardwicke
Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was a noted English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly fifty years...
, Mary Wickes
Mary Wickes
Mary Wickes was an American film and television actress.-Career:Wickes was born as Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, of German Irish Protestant extraction. She graduated at the age of eighteen with a degree in political science from Washington University in St. Louis, where she...
and Marion Ross
Marion Ross
Marion Ross is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Cunningham on the television series Happy Days from 1974 to 1984.-Early life:...
. Berg played a 62-year-old widow who decides to attend college.
Berg was also a songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
. Her composition, "That Wonderful Someone", even found its way into the repertoire of country music singer Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
, appearing on Cline's 1957 debut album.
Biographies
A biography of Berg, Something on My Own: Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929–1956, by Glenn D. Smith, Jr. (Syracuse University Press) appeared in 2007. Aviva KempnerAviva Kempner
Aviva Kempner is an American filmmaker. Her documentaries investigate non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and focus on the untold stories of Jewish heroes. She is most well known for The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg....
's 2009 documentary, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is a 2009 documentary film on the broadcast career of Gertrude Berg and her radio and television serials, The Goldbergs. Aviva Kempner directed the film, interviewing family members of Berg, cast members of the Goldbergs and historians of radio and television...
, deals with Berg's career, and to an extent, her personal life.
Death
Berg died of heart failure on September 14, 1966, aged 67, in a Manhattan hospital. She is buried in Clovesville Cemetery. Her husband, Lewis, died in 1985, aged 87.External links
- Gertrude Berg Honoree at The Paley Center for Media
- Syracuse University: Gertrude Berg Papers
- Interview with Fred Rogers Gertrude Berg on the PBS show Children's Corner, Archive of American Television interview with Fred Rogers, part 4 of 9, about ten minutes into the program.
- Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, 2009 documentary by Aviva KempnerAviva KempnerAviva Kempner is an American filmmaker. Her documentaries investigate non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and focus on the untold stories of Jewish heroes. She is most well known for The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg....
. - Webcast on Gertrude Berg, The Paley Center for Media, "From The Goldbergs to 2005: The Evolution of the Family Sitcom" (November 16, 2005)
- "Something On My Own: Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929–1956" by Glenn D. Smith, Jr.