For the past 30 years, my goal has been to make documentaries about lesser-known Jewish heroes that counter negative stereotypes.
My newest film, "Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg," celebrates the accomplished, and long-forgotten, Gertrude Berg, the creator of the domestic sitcom.
Gertrude Berg’s radio show, "The Rise of the Goldbergs," debuted in 1929 and was an American favorite for seventeen years. Her television show, "The Goldbergs," was equally beloved.
In 1950, Gertrude Berg won the first best actress Emmy Award in history and "The Goldbergs" was nominated for Best Kinescope Show.
She would wake up at six in the morning, write her shows, and then go off to the studio to produce. Without missing a beat she seamlessly performed Molly to perfection.
She wrote the most positive portrayal of a Jewish mother and her family during the decades that severely threatened American and European Jewry. She crafted a warm maternal figure, in spite of her own mother’s mental illness. Berg created the “perfect mother” she never experienced in her own life.
Berg became an important public figure at a time when positive images of Jews, especially mothers, were rarely shown in public. The “Oprah" of her day, Berg was a media trailblazer with a cookbook, advice column, and clothing line in addition to popular radio and television serials. Her creation of a specifically ethnic, but far from atypical, American life in "The Goldbergs" carries through to this day.
You didn’t have to be Jewish to love Molly. She was admired by millions of all backgrounds as they sat with families and friends around their radios and televisions following "The Goldbergs."
As a trailblazer in the male dominated entertainment world, she invented product placement; audiences bought whatever products she suggested. She wrote compelling scenes and hilarious lines, especially her trademark malapropisms that audiences remember and recite to this day.
Berg is the most important woman in show business that many don’t know about because her enormous contributions to show business have been forgotten - until now. This summer the U.S. Postal Service is issuing stamps commemorating the early TV shows
Unbelievably"The Goldbergs" are ignored.
Berg stood up to the destructive Blacklist, pursuing all avenues to save Philip Loeb’s career. The show ran into trouble when Berg’s co-star Loeb was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s blacklist. The show’s sponsors threatened to pull out, but Berg took a strong stand, long refusing to fire him.
Her efforts proved fruitless. In January 1952, a distraught Berg settled with Loeb, who left the show. The Blacklist deprived Americans of many creative talents as it destroyed lives. The demise of Loeb as Jake Goldberg was the worst television story to come out of this witch hunt. The detrimental effect of the Blacklist on Gertrude Berg’s reputation is equally shocking.
While the show recovered, "The Goldbergs" would never be the same, especially after the sad passing of Philip Loeb in 1955 by suicide, memorialized by Loeb’s good friend Zero Mostel in the 1976 film, "The Front."
