Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

technique was impressive. I asked the director about her and he told me that her name was Gertrude Berg and that she had started a program of her own a few days before. It was called The Rise of the Goldbergs. I didn't think much more about it until a few days later when the woman who had played "Mrs. Cohen" stopped me in the hallway at the studio and thanked me for writing a good review about her program. When she found out that I was Howard's mother and not the newspaperwoman she had mistaken me for, she wasn't embarrassed at all. Instead she laughed and said, "Come have a soda with me, Mrs. Merrill." 0' ver a fifteen-cent soda, on the site „ which now houses Tiffany, the fancypriced jeweler, I found out more about Gertrude Berg. She was thirty-one and happily married, with two children. She was born in Manhattan but most of her childhood was spent in the Delaware County mountains where her parents and grandparents owned a small hotel. They encouraged her dancing and recitations and sometimes allowed her to put on one-girl shows for the hotel guests. Naturally, I didn't learn everything that afternoon. But I did find out that Molly's creator and counterpart is the most generous woman I've ever known. When we had finished our sodas and chatted for an hour or so, Mrs. Berg asked me to join her while she went Christmas shopping. I hadn't finished my own that year so I was happy to go along with her. We wandered in and out of the beguilingly decorated shops on Fifth Avenue. As I watched the exquisite and expensive gifts Mrs. Berg bought, I wondered if she had told me the truth about her limited means — she received only seventy-five dollars a week for the program — and her simple way of living. It didn't make sense to me that she should shop so lavishly. I must admit that when she asked me to go home with her and help her wrap the gifts, I accepted as much out of curiosity as out of a genuine desire to helo my new found friend. The Berg apartment was six neat rooms on Riverside Drive and 99th Street. I remember that there were butcher linen curtains, lovely antiaues and an aura of general good taste. The whole effect was just the way Gertrude had described it — "simple, but nice." There I met Gertrude's husband, Lewis, who is a chemical engineer. Knowing that his wife's great vitality had to have a broader outlet than a six-room apartment, he had blessed her script-writing efforts. That day in 1929 I also met the Berg children — Harriet, who was still in a high chair, and Cherney, who was in kindergarten. A nurse took care of the children when Gertrude was at the studio. I could tell that it was a happy home. The same vibrancy and affection which Molly brings to Rosalie and Jake and Sammy, Gertrude brought — still brings — to Lewis and Harriet and Cherney. Like Molly, Gertrude's warmth kindles r other people's lives, too. She made me M tell her about myself and my son. All this time we were wrapping her Christmas packages. At twilight, I literally had to tear myself away. 80 "Such a Good Person!" (Continued from -page 33) "I must go now," I said, moving toward the door. Gertrude moved with me. "This is for you, darling," she said, slipping one of the gaily wrapped packages under my arm. "You picked it out. Wear it well." I remember that I couldn't speak for the moment. There was a dry feeling in my mouth. Then I wet my lips, thanked her and said goodnight. Waiting for the downtown bus, I felt certain that Santa Claus was a plump and jolly person named Gertrude Berg. And through the years I have become more and more convinced about her associations with the North Pole. Even my becoming Gertrude's secretary stemmed out of her great consideration for others. Not long after The Rise of the Goldbergs started on the air, fan mail began to arrive in floods. Gertrude was overwhelmed. She wanted to answer every single letter, but between running her house, caring for the children and writing the weekly half-hour script, she could find no time for the letters. At that time a friend of mine, Alice, was in difficulties. She was a widow with a baby and needed a job which would not take her away from her apartment. When Gertrude asked my advice on how to deal with all that mail, I immediately thought of Alice. "Pay her a dollar an hour," I suggested, "and let her handle it from her home." She agreed but at the end of the first week when I told her that Alice had put in ten hours, Gertrude was reluctant to pay her ten dollars. "How can you ask anyone to work for a dollar an hour?" she asked, and wrote out a check for fifteen dollars. A few months later, Alice was able to make arrangements to have someone take care of the baby while she took a full time job. She asked Mrs. Berg to look for someone else. Again Gertrude turned to me. "What are we going to do? Those people expect their letters to be answered." "Don't worry about it," I said. "I'll look after them this week and we'll see if we can't get someone else later on. This week you'll save your money. It's for free — on me." At the end of the week Gertrude insisted that I accept payment for my work. Maybe you know from watching the program, that you can't argue with Molly when her mind is made up. Gertrude is no different. That's how it became a job lasting these past twentyone years. The popularity of the Goldbergs continued to rise. I'll never forget the day I was with Gertrude at the studios when a man representing Pepsodent toothpaste introduced himself. He offered her a commercial sponsor and a contract to write six fifteen-minute programs a week. "How can I write six programs a week!" my boss asked, frightened at the prospect of turning out so many scripts. "We're willing to pay you $2,000 a week, Mrs. Berg," the man said. A change came over Gertrude. But it was the voice of Molly which responded. "So who can't write six scripts a week?" she said, dismissing the light chore. It was a deal. Within a few months, the Goldbergs was one of the top programs on the air. Fan mail tripled. Every actor in New York wanted to appear on the show. Other sponsors and advertising agencies made overtures to Gertrude. Did the sudden and stunning success change her? Not at all. She was the same jovial, kindly human being I'd become devoted to one day in November not quite two years before. The only changes were those wrought by an increased income. The Berg family moved to a duplex apartment on Central Park West. There was more room and more fine furniture, but the same good taste prevailed. Even I moved to a nicer apartment. I could afford it, too. My duties by now were no longer concentrated on fan mail. We had another girl for that job. I became casting director, executive secretary and all-around trouble shooter for the program. Gertrude, of course, had to work a great deal harder than before. There is a vast difference between turning out one half-hour show a week and six fifteen-minute ones. That schedule did not vary until recently. Now Gertrude writes only a half-hour program each week for television. But the amount of work is equal to the six day schedule. Perhaps it's even harder for her, because the stories must be planned for sight as well as for sound. This planning begins at six o'clock each morning in a Park Avenue apartment. There Gertrude Berg seats herself at a small card table and breathes life into Molly Goldberg of Tremont Avenue, The Bronx. For three hours these two individuals merge into one, facing similar problems and solving them together. Molly's crises are genuine, but her gentle criticisms of what's wrong with the world and her sometimes unorthodox ways of solving problems are always entertainment. There was the time, for instance, when Rosalie was Snow White and the neighbors' children were cast as the Seven Dwarfs in a community play. The neighbors rebelled at the secondary roles for their children and refused to sell tickets for the play. Molly hit on the idea of making seven Snow Whites and only one dwarf. The show went on. Then there was the time Molly forced Jake into a hobby. Art seemed to be a proper one for a middle-aged businessman, but Jake took it so seriously that he began posing and dressing like a Parisian attic painter. He eventually abandoned it but not before Molly herself learned that it's sometimes a good idea to let well enough alone. Gertrude's own touch doesn't differ much from Molly's. I remember the time her young niece, the bride of a college student, was about to start married life in a furnished room. Unknown to the couple, Gertrude found a lovely three-room apartment and had it furnished from a Fifth Avenue store. Then she brought them to see it. "This is a better way to start out in life," she announced to the wideeyed bride and groom. Once someone called her attention to the plight of an old couple in New Jersey. Their house had been condemned and they had no place to go. Bristling with anger and energy, Gertrude went out and found an apartment