Gertrude Berg was a remarkable mid-20th-century figure: a prodigious radio and TV writer and producer, an entrepreneur, a Tony and Emmy winner, a star.
As radio journalist Susan Stamberg says early on in “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” an appreciative new documentary by D.C. filmmaker Aviva Kempner, Berg was “the Oprah Winfrey of her time.”
Even that might undersell Berg’s accomplishments as an artist and businesswoman. Starting just after the stock market crash of 1929, Berg created and starred in “The Goldbergs,” a radio sitcom about a working-class family whose matriarch counseled and cajoled her family and neighbors in a crowded Bronx tenement.
Berg later moved the show to the new medium of television, where it became the first successful domestic sitcom.
Berg achieved something extraordinary. In the depths of the Depression, with anti-Semitism plentiful at home, Berg managed to turn the semi-autobiographical stories of an ethnic family into something both quintessentially American and universally appealing. At its peak, “The Goldbergs” was among the most popular radio programs in the nation.
For all her dogged research and interviewing, Kempner doesn’t explore one important question: Why is Berg so little remembered today?
Could it be because “The Goldbergs” never enjoyed the rerun afterlife? Could it also be that Berg, who died at age 67 in 1966, didn’t bother to preserve more of her show?
As is, this generally excellent portrait does much to fill the void, restoring an unfortunately forgotten figure to her rightful place among broadcasting’s trailblazers.
“Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is scheduled for Seattle release in October. Meanwhile, you can visit www.mollygoldbergfilm.org/ for information about the show and even recipes from Molly Goldberg.
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