On the evening of January 17, 1948, The
Goldbergs premiered on CBS
Television. Most historians of the medium credit it
with being the first true situation
comedy on TV. It continued to run in different forms and under different
titles until 1958 on three networks
and in new episode syndication. It is not to confused in any way with the
current ABC show of the same name.
It was a spectacular professional achievement for its creator, Gertrude Berg. In
its dawning years TV was almost totally dominated by men. But Berg produced,
directed, wrote, and starred in
every episode and had almost complete
control of the program. She even dwarfed the power that Lucille Ball had over her landmark program I Love Lucy.
You would think with bona
fides like that The Goldbergs
would get lots of attention from the burgeoning ranks of
television histories and broadcast
documentaries. But it hardly merits
a footnote.
You don’t think that it might be
because the series was about the home
life of, you know, Jews do
you? And not the urbane hipster young Jews
that show up on modern sitcoms, but second and first generation off-the-boat Eastern
European Jews with funny ways of
talking and odd customs presided
over by the meddlesome but well-meaning Jewish mother to end all Jewish
mothers living in near poverty in a Bronx tenement.
The
Goldbergs was Gertrude Berg’s life’s
work.
She was born Tilly Edelstein in Harlem—then an immigrant
neighborhood—in 1898. Her father was an immigrant who made modestly good and invested in a Catskills resort hotel. Young Tilly attended public school and
properly married Lewis Berg at the age of 20. Together they had two children.
But Tilly
had been bitten by the show biz bug.
She participated in the lively amateur Yiddish theater scene. But she found
her niche not only as a
performer but as a writer when she began to create comedy sketches for
her father’s hotel based on her childhood. She
created a matriarch, Molly Goldberg, based on her own mother.
In 1928,
now using the professional name Gertrude Berg, she wrangled a spot on radio with NBC. After
appearing as local programming, The
Rise of the Goldbergs premiered in November 1929 just days after
the Stock Market Crash that sent the nation into the Great Depression.
Originally a 15 minute weekly serial,
it gave a Yiddish spin to the popular domestic comedy genre that
included such radio favorites as Fibber
McGee and Molly, Vic and Sade,
and Easy Aces. Perhaps the struggles of the
Goldbergs seemed more universal as the Depression settled in. At
any rate, the show—and Molly Goldberg—was a hit. In 1931 it moved to five days a week.
Each
program began with Molly calling out of the tenement window, “Yoo-hoo! Is anybody...?” Stories centered on the family—Molly’s
immigrant father with stars in his eyes about American opportunity, her hard working if sometimes set upon husband, her two growing children and the neighbors. Molly always was in everybody’s business
as they struggled to adapt to a new way of life and support themselves. Whatever foibles
she had were overshadowed by
her good heart.
The program moved to CBS in 1936 and
was renamed simply The Goldbergs. Still a 15 minute program, it was a cross between a comedy and soap opera. Serious issues and struggles were dealt
with as humorously as possible. As
tensions rose in Europe, story lines included the fate of relatives still in
the old country, anti-Semitism here, and harsh economic reality. After America entered World War II, so did the Goldberg family.
The show introduced middle America to Jewish culture. The
High Holy Days were observed and
for many years Metropolitan Opera star
Jan Peerce any sang the prayers of a Cantor. One
Jewish historian observed, “This series has done more to set us Jews right with
the goyim than all the sermons ever
preached by the Rabbis.”
The program was nearly as popular as
CBS’s number 1 hit Amos and Andy which featured another minority group. But Amos and Andy was written and performed by white men who, although fond of their characters,
relied on the conventions of old minstrel shows to portray them. Although Berg was sometimes later charged with promoting an
ethnic stereotype, the characterizations were infused with reality.
In 1948 Goldberg took material from
the show and created and starred in a successful Broadway
version, Me and Molly. The success of that show enticed CBS to
bring it to television in a 30 minute
weekly format.
The TV
show reset the clock on the family saga. The Goldberg children had grown up and married in the long
running radio series. On TV they were once again adolescents. But the heart of the program remained the
same. And despite the fears of the network
and sponsor General Foods’ Sanka
Coffee that American would not watch Jews who looked Jewish, the show was a hit. Berg won the very
first Emmy Award for Best Actress in 1950.
But the
same year the show faced a
crisis. Philip Loeb, who had played the part of Molly’s husband Jake
in the Broadway show, stayed in the role for the television
series. In 1950 he was charged with being a Communist,
which he denied. The charges were
never proven, but General Foods wanted him off the show to avoid controversy.
Berg, who owned the show, flatly refused. CBS dropped
it from their 1951 line up.
NBC agreed
to bring it back, but only without Loeb.
In the end Berg reluctantly agreed but continued to personally
pay Loeb his salary secretly.
Loeb, distraught by a virtual blacklisting, committed
suicide in 1955.
NBC aired The Goldbergs in the 1953-54 season as
two 15 minute shows in the early evening alternating with other
programming. It dropped the show
after the end of the season.
The DuMont
TV Network then picked the show up and hoped to re-build its sagging schedule around the hit, which reverted to a 30 minute format. The DuMont shows,
unlike the filmed segments on the other networks, were aired live.
But the network collapsed before the full scheduled 1955 run could be
completed.
In 1955-56
Berg produced new episodes for
syndication. In these shows the Goldbergs reflected the
upward mobility of post war
Jews and followed many of their models by moving from the old Bronx tenement to a Connecticut
suburb. The shows focused on the
struggle to adapt to the new environment without all the familiar support
systems of the old neighborhood.
After the
show finally went off the air, Berg appeared in character
for sketches on variety shows like Washington Square with Ray
Bolger, and a Kate Smith
special.
Berg starred on Broadway in A Majority of One opposite Sir Cedric Hardwick but lost the movie roll to Rosalind Russell.
In 1959 her career revived when she won
a Tony Award for best actress for her staring turn in A Majority of One in
which she played a Jewish widow who falls in love with a Japanese businessman despite having lost a son in World War II. She was deeply disappointed when the decidedly
non-Jewish Rosalind Russell was
cast as Mrs. Jacoby opposite the
equally non-Japanese Alec Guiness in the Warner Bros. film.
Despite the disappointment, 1961 was
a good year for Berg. Her memoirs Molly and Me became a best seller. And she returned
to series television one
more time as a Jewish widow in Mrs. G. Goes to College with Sir Cedric Hardwick as her stuffy, perplexed professor. After being re-named the Gertrude Berg Show in mid-season, it was canceled in the
spring of 1962.
Berg died of heart failure
in New York in 1966 at the age of 67 survived
by her long-time husband and two children.
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