Happy Women’s History Month! Help JWA continue to lift up Jewish women’s stories, this month and every month, by making a gift today!
Close [x]

Show [+]

Gertrude Berg makes her television debut

October 18, 1948

The quintessential Jewish mother to millions of television viewers, "Molly Goldberg" (Gertrude Berg) is shown here in a scene from the film Molly, presumably giving out a taste of chicken soup.

Institution: Private collection.

Gertrude Berg made her television debut as Bronx housewife Molly Goldberg on NBC's Chevrolet on Broadway in 1948. The Goldbergs began running as a comedy series on NBC radio in 1929 and became one of television's earliest and most popular situation comedies beginning in 1949. Berg produced and scripted the shows and portrayed Molly Goldberg, the family matriarch.

Each show offered audiences a pleasant, often comical portrayal of the life of a second-generation Jewish American family. Assimilation into American culture was a prominent theme throughout the series with the last season incorporating the family's move from their Bronx apartment to a fictitious suburb. After the series' cancellation in 1955, Berg went on to win a Tony Award in 1959 for her work in the Broadway comedy A Majority of One by Leonard Spigelgass. Gertrude Berg died in New York City on September 14, 1966.

Sources: Jewish Women In America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 139-141; J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler, ed., Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (Princeton, NJ: 2003), pp. 113-127.

0 Comments

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now

How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Gertrude Berg makes her television debut." (Viewed on March 19, 2024) <http://jwa.org/thisweek/oct/18/1948/gertrude-berg>.