page_title: Gertrude Berg
section_title: Life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Gertrude Berg / Life and career
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Gertrude Berg at work over scripts for the television program The Goldbergs. When Berg first began writing, she didn't use the household's typewriter, but wrote the initial story by hand in pencil. When she finally was able to get an appointment with someone at NBC about her story, the executive tried reading what she had written and couldn't. Berg then started reading her script to the executive; this not only sold the radio program, but got Berg the job of being the lead actress in it. She continued to author her scripts by hand in pencil as long as The Goldbergs were on the air.
context_page_description: Gertrude Berg 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, later known as The Goldbergs. Her career achievements included winning a Tony Award and an Emmy Award, both for Best Lead Actress.
context_section_description: Berg was born Tillie Edelstein in 1899 in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, to Jacob and Diana 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.
  Tillie, who lived with her family on Lexington Avenue, 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.
  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.
  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'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.
  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.
  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 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. The series was canceled as a result of Loeb's participation, and both networks 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 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. T
caption: Berg working on television scripts by hand in pencil in 1950.
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