Interview with Aviva Kempner
By Robert Levin
Special to amNewYork
Gertrude Berg is often touted as “the Oprah of her day.” Yet today this mid-20th century icon has largely been forgotten. Documentarian Aviva Kempner hopes to rectify that with her new film “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” the title of which was her subject’s famous alter ego’s favorite catchphrase.
Now in theaters, the film chronicles the life and achievements of Berg, creator and star of the early television show “The Goldbergs,” which served as the harbinger of “Leave it to Beaver” and generations of other family based sitcoms. With her distinct style of leaning out her apartment window and chatting with her neighbors, or breaking the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience, she became a beloved Jewish-American icon.
amNewYork spoke to the filmmaker.
What are your own personal memories of Gertrude Berg and “The Goldbergs?”
I myself am an immigrant. I was born in Berlin after the war, the first American war baby, and I came to Detroit [when I was] I think three-years-old, so I remember in the home us watching her on TV. But it’s a very vague memory.
What led you to your professional interest in the subject?
In my making film life, in “Hank Greenberg” (“The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” her film about the baseball legend) there’s a scene where again in the Bronx, I seem to be a Bronx maven, Greenberg’s neighbors are yelling out the window saying, “Greenberg is a bum.” And I used to see from “Going My Way” where women are yelling out the window, and that [led me to] “The Goldbergs.” And then I made a short film called “Today I Vote for My Joey,” about the Jewish vote going for Pat Buchanan and I wrote that, it’s my one dramatic script, and in it the main character yells, “Yoo hoo, let’s go to vote” and it’s about the 2000 election, so I was really channeling Gertrude Berg. And then when I went to the Jewish Museum and saw an exhibit called “Jews Entertaining America,” the recreation of the Goldberg living room, I said “that’s my next film.” My M.O. is doing under known Jewish heroes, in this particular instance a Jewish heroine.
Why has Gertrude Berg been largely forgotten?
I think there are several reasons. I think, one, she was too early and oftentimes the pioneers get forgotten until the writers and the filmmakers bring them to life. Two is she wasn’t syndicated, and I think she lost out because people didn’t get to keep on seeing the episodes, although there is going to be a DVD release of her episodes I think by the end of the year. Third of all, the blacklist hurt her. She lost some time on TV. And I think fourth of all, her humor, her poignancy, stands up in time, but she wasn’t a physical comedian like Lucille Ball. But what’s amazing [is] it’s like forgetting Oprah in 50 years. No one will ever stop talking about what Oprah did and accomplished or the profound influence she had. That’s what doc filmmakers are all about. As I tell my relatives, “I don’t make money, I make history,” so hopefully that will be different [this time]. [laughs]
What sets “The Goldbergs” apart from other onscreen portrayals of Jews, past and present?
We could argue Larry David’s Jewish, Seinfeld’s Jewish, “The Nanny” is very Jewish, but no one was so overly Jewish in terms of employing actors from the Yiddish theater [and depicting] ceremonies that you celebrate together. You saw in the film they would have Passover, and the poignancy of World War II, [and] you would see synagogues. And there’s never been, I think, as positive a Jewish mother role. I ran into Fran Drescher at a Creative Coalition event and I said to her, “I’m making a film about Gertrude Berg of ‘The Goldbergs,’” and she said, “Who is that?” I thought “The Nanny” was very funny, I think we could argue the other shows I’ve mentioned, they’re hysterical, but are they really positively Jewish?
