Gertrude Berg

Gertrude Berg (Born Tillie Edelstein;[1] October 3, 1899 – September 14, 1966) was an American actress, screenwriter and producer. 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. Her career achievements included winning a Tony Award and an Emmy Award, both for Best Lead Actress.

Gertrude Berg
As Molly Goldberg in 1951.
Born
Tillie Edelstein

(1899-10-03)October 3, 1899
East Harlem, New York City, U.S.
DiedSeptember 14, 1966(1966-09-14) (aged 66)
Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
OccupationActress, screenwriter
Years active1929–1961
Spouse(s)Lewis Berg (1918–1966; her death)
Children2

Life and career

Berg was born Tillie Edelstein[1] in 1899 in the East Harlem[1] neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, to Jacob and Dinah Edelstein, natives of Russia and England, respectively. Berg's chronically unstable mother, Dinah, grieving over the death of her young son, experienced a series of nervous breakdowns and later died in a sanitarium.[1]

Tillie, who lived with her family on Lexington Avenue,[1] 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.[2][3]

Berg was also the author and lead actress of House of Glass, heard on NBC in 1935. Berg played a hotel owner in this short-lived radio program.

After the sugar factory where her husband worked burned down, she developed a semi-autobiographical skit, portraying a Jewish family in a Bronx tenement, into a radio show. Though the household had a typewriter, Berg wrote her script by hand, taking the pages this way to a long-awaited appointment at NBC. When the executive she was meeting with protested that he could not read what Berg had written, she read the script aloud to him. Her performance not only sold the idea for the radio program but also got Berg the job as the lead actress on the program she had written. Berg continued to write the show's scripts by hand in pencil for as long as the program was on the air.[2]

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."[4] Berg's husband, Lewis—who became a successful consulting engineer, though his job loss prompted her to write the initial radio script—refused to be photographed with his wife for publicity purposes, as he felt this was infringing on her success.[2]

Berg working on television scripts by hand in pencil in 1950.

Berg became inextricably identified as Molly Goldberg, the bighearted matriarch of her fictitious Bronx 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 stated 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.[5]

Immigrant life and the Goldberg family struggle were familiar and relatable to many families during this point in American history. Radio seemed to lend a hand to new settlers and produced a common place to tie patriotism 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 in book form.[5]

In 1951, Berg won the first ever Emmy Award for Lead Actress in a Television Series, her debut year on a new network, her twentieth consecutive year of playing the role. The show would stay in production for five more 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. The series was canceled as a result of Loeb's participation, and both network and sponsors insisted Loeb be fired as a condition of the show returning to air, despite Berg's protests. Loeb resigned rather than cause Berg trouble. He reportedly received a generous severance package from the show, but it did not prevent him from sinking into a depression that ultimately drove him to suicide in 1955.[6] 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). The series is currently seen on the Jewish Life Television (JLTV) cable network.

Berg with orchids in the greenhouse of her summer home, 1954.

Berg continued to make guest appearances on television in the 1950s and early 1960s. She appeared on The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, a February 1958 episode of The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and was the "mystery guest'" on the series What's My Line in 1954 and 1960. In 1961, Berg 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), playing a 62-year-old widow who enrolls in college. The series was cancelled after one season.

Berg continued working in theatre through these years. In 1959, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in A Majority of One. 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.

Berg was also a songwriter. Country music singer Patsy Cline sang Berg's composition "That Wonderful Someone" on Cline's 1957 debut album.[7]

Death and legacy

Berg died of heart failure on September 14, 1966, aged 66, at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan.[8] She is buried at Clovesville Cemetery in Fleischmanns, New York.

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 Kempner's 2009 documentary, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, deals with Berg's career, and to an extent, her personal life.[9]

References
  1. Smith, Glenn D. (2007). "Something on My Own": Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929-1956. Syracuse University Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-0815608875.
  2. Senseney, Dan (August 1954). The Heart of the Goldbergs (PDF). TV-Radio Mirror. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  3. Shandler, Jeffrey. "Gertrude Berg", Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia
  4. Current Biography 1941, pg. 71
  5. Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
  6. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows (6th Ed.), by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, pg. 404
  7. "Patsy Cline". Allmusic. 1957. Retrieved January 31, 2012. (Note the last name is misspelled on the website as Burg)
  8. "Gertrude Berg, Molly of 'The Goldbergs' Dead; Actress Wrote and Starred in Popular Radio-TV Series". New York Times. September 15, 1966. Retrieved 2009-07-10. Gertrude Berg, known to millions of Americans as the original Jewish mother of radio, television, stage and screen, died yesterday of heart failure at Doctors Hospital after a brief illness.
  9. Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, mollygoldbergfilm.org; accessed December 6, 2014.

Further reading
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