How Jewish Mom Became a Star for Millions of Americans
'06.02.2019'
Source: Jewish.ru
In the midst of the Great Depression, 30-year-old housewife brought on NBC a script about the Goldberg family. She was predicted of failure, but in the end millions of Americans fell in love with Jewish mother Molly and her children with all their hearts. Gertrude Berg brought this fortune and glory.
Gertrude Berg, nee Tilly Edelstein, usually characterized her childhood as follows: “It wasn't very good, but it could have been worse,” writes Jewish.ru. She was born on October 3 1899 in the family of James and Diana Edelstein, who lived on the outskirts of East Harlem, in those years mainly populated by Jews. The young couple had two children, but the eldest son Karl died of diphtheria when he was only seven years old. Having lost a child, the parents completely unstuck, as if forgetting that they have a daughter, and she also needs love and care.
Jacob locked himself in and to the end of his days carried a telegram in his pocket with the news of his son’s death, and Diana suffered so much that after several serious nervous breakdowns she came to the clinic for the mentally ill. As a result, whether from resentment towards parents, or from unwillingness to go into details, Trudy always spoke of herself as the only child.
She knew from childhood what responsibility is, because her father, who alone was engaged in her upbringing, was torn between work and home. Jacob owned a small hotel in the “Borshchovo Belt” and spent there almost all the time, at the same time teaching his daughter to believe that she was destined to become his successor. The girl studied at a regular high school, and in the summer she worked at her father’s hotel. According to the actress, it was then that she began to play small sketches of her own composition in order to entertain guests in rainy weather. With her husband, Lewis Berg, with whom she lived until the end of his days, Gertrude also met at the hotel. She was only 14 years old when a chemical student from England promised to return to Catskill when she grew up. Five years later, he really showed up to make her a marriage proposal.
Her father was against their wedding, but Gertrude still married Lewis. According to the actress, an educated and restrained husband considered her “the flighty heroine of Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle, from whom an ideal woman could turn out.” However, ten years later my husband realized that Gertrude is not as simple as he thought. In the 1929 year — when Berg had two children — the sugar factory that Lewis worked on burned down. This event coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression, and the head of the family could not find a new job. “Our savings melted away, the hope for the best melted with them,” said Gertrude. “Then, during the break between preparing dinner and checking lessons, I sat down and wrote the script for the first series of the Ascension of Goldbergs.”
When the text was ready, Trudy made an appointment with the head of NBC radio. She came to her potential employers, clutching several pages to her chest, dotted with a small illegible handwriting. "They said:" Your scribbles can not be disassembled! Then I read the script myself, by roles, and they offered me the main role, ”Gertrude recalled. “To be honest, I was counting on this when I wrote the text by hand!”
After the first broadcast, NBC founder David Sarnov called the show “boring, like a telephone directory,” but it soon became obvious that he was mistaken. The comedy about the family from the Bronx, in which Berg played the main role of the typical "Jewish mother," a month later, tens of thousands of people listened, and only a small part of them were the same as the heroes of nationality. The newspapers even wrote then that "Molly, Jake and their children taught people more tolerance than all the preachers of the world put together."
When Gertrude had a sore throat and had to temporarily replace another actress, the listeners flooded NBC with letters demanding "to return their one and only Molly Goldberg." After that, no one stuttered about the uselessness of the program, and Gertrude became a star. Her salary grew with popularity. First, the actress was paid less than one hundred dollars a week, but after two years, despite the crisis, her weekly fee rose to two thousand dollars.
Gertrude did not receive this money for her charisma: under the guidance of the "Jewish mother" the show began to bring a huge income. Mrs. Berg proposed to make the author's column “Ask Mother” in a well-known publication, wrote Molly's Culinary Book, initiated the launch of a large-size homewear line, and was the organizer of the tour on 1934 of the year. “The goldbergs really brought us a mountain of gold,” she joked.
In 1936, the show moved to a CBS radio station, and its name shortened to Goldbergs. Then, Life magazine wrote that “for millions of Americans, listening to this program was a pleasant ritual, like putting on soft slippers that never seem to wear out.” In most cases, Gertrude built a scenario on ridiculous and ridiculous situations that happened to Goldbergs and their neighbors, but she still could not ignore anti-Semitism and world politics. The program included stories about the deterioration of the situation in Nazi Germany, and about Kristallnacht, and about family friends who were trying to escape from Europe before the Holocaust. So, 3 of April of 1939, the episode was broadcast, in which the window of the Goldberg living room, marking Passover, is broken by a cobblestone, thrown by some villain.
The Goldberg radio show went on until 1946. By that time, the show had already about ten million regular listeners, but Gertrude decided that this format had exhausted itself. Based on the program, she wrote the play "Molly and I", which in 1948 was put on at the Broadway theater Belasco. A year later, Molly appeared before the audience no longer on the stage, but on television. When Berg came on the radio, television was barely looming on the horizon, but by the 1948 year, there were already 60 television stations in the States. The number of happy owners of televisions at that time exceeded one million, and the radio was rapidly losing its relevance. Many well-known radio presenters were not ready for this turn of events, but Gertrude only shrugged her shoulders. She always demanded that the actors move and do something, and not just stand in their tracks while reading the script. Television "Jewish mother" was not to scare.
The first series of the Goldberg sitcom was aired on January 1949. Since then, Berg has repeatedly appeared in various shows, especially highlighting the program "Mr. Television" Milton Burle. Everybody was sarcastic about the lead, but the actress called him a sweetheart, and quite frankly - as Trudy's colleagues recalled, she simply loved and took care of everyone she worked with. Despite the reputation of an uncompromising perfectionist, Berg never used the whip method. “I am like a mother in a large family: I teach children to be obedient and wash their ears thoroughly and always set an example for them,” said the actress. “How can I demand diligence from others if I don’t try my best?”
As a result, Gertrude's efforts were rewarded adequately - in 1951, she became the first to receive an Emmy Award for Best Actress in a comedy television series. According to the actress, such success would have been impossible if she had not identified herself with her heroine. “Molly thinks, feels and acts like me. I don't even need to play. At one time, she was looking for a daughter from a good family, because I myself was concerned about this issue, ”said Berg. - Lying in the hospital, I constantly asked the interns if they were married. As a result, both my real and television daughters found their husbands on their own. ”
The Goldberg ratings were off the scale, and the show would have remained on top of success if politics had not intervened. In 1951, the television "husband" of Gertrude, actor Philip Loeb, was put on the Hollywood blacklist, and the CBS executives removed the show from the air. Eight months later, he agreed to broadcast NBC, but with one caveat: Leba needs to be replaced by another actor. After hesitating, Gertrude agreed, but giving the role to Harold Stone, quietly continued to pay wages and Loeb. However, the help of friends could not save the actor from depression: in 1955, desperate to find work, Philip committed suicide by taking a few packs of sleeping pills. Sitcom Goldbergs ceased to exist a year later.
But Gertrude did not think to stop working: she became even more active in attending the show as a guest guest, and also played in the Broadway production of The Greatness One, for which she won the Tony Award in 1959. Three years later, the actress attempted to return to television: starred in the sitcom “Mrs. Goldberg is going to college,” which, however, was not very interested in the audience. But Gertrude did not upset such an outcome either: she with a clear conscience went into retirement, explaining that "she already gave Molly too much time and energy."
The actress died from heart failure 14 September 1966 of the year. At this time, Broadway was preparing a production of the play “How to become a Jewish mother,” where she was supposed to play a major role. “Gertrude Berg lived at a time when Jews were oppressed and women were not put in anything. Trudy was unlucky twice - she was a woman of Jewish descent, ”says Aviva Kempner, director of the documentary film“ You-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg ”. “Nevertheless, she managed to create an image of a Jewish family that millions of Americans loved. I think the whole thing was in Molly Goldberg - everyone would like to have a mother like her. ”
