"Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg"

[Professor]

From Aviva Kempner, award-winning maker of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG, comes this humorous and eye-opening story of television pioneer Gertrude Berg. She was the creator, principal writer, and star of The Goldbergs, a popular radio show about a Jewish family living in New York City which became television’s very first character-driven domestic sitcom in 1949. She combined social commentary, family values and lots of humor to win the hearts of America.

Norman Lear, producer of All in the Family:
“It’s overwhelming that this woman could have done all of that, and so successfully, and for so many years.”

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
“She was no shrinking violet. We all listened to Molly Goldberg on the radio.”

NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg:
“She had that delightful little accent. She wore smart hats from time to time. Yes, she still had that apron, and that old world touch, but she was a modern woman that Molly!”

“’The Oprah of her day’ is one talking head’s description of the broadcasting pioneer Gertrude Berg in “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” Aviva Kempner’s engrossing documentary portrait of a once-beloved radio and television star who died in 1966 and today is barely remembered. The film could be described as Exhibit A in a study of media celebrity and collective forgetfulness in the age of information overload.” Stephen Holden, New York Times

www.mollygoldbergfilm.org

[YOUTUBE]<object width="660" height="525"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/LwtJhlKW47k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/LwtJhlKW47k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="660" height="525"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this -- Berg was one of the most fascinating figures of radio, and also one of the most difficult to work for. Behind the kindly Yiddische-mama figure was an absolute autocrat who drove her cast mercilessly thru rehearsals, and tolerated no less than perfection in performance. She was also a master of reinventing her format to suit the times -- turning "The Goldbergs" from an Amos-n-Andy-style serial comedy/drama in the early thirties, to a schmaltzy small-town daytime soap opera in the later thirties and forties, to a half-hour TV sitcom in the fifties, all without losing the essential flavor of the characters. It's about time someone told her story.