Print
E-Mail
tool name
closeWednesday, Oct. 14, 2009
'Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg' a fitting tribute to show-biz pioneer
Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
****
Unrated (mature themes); 93 min.
Aviva Kempner’s Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is a lively, loving portrait of Gertrude Berg (1898 -1966), creator and star of The Goldbergs, a hit on radio and television.
"The most famous woman in America you’ve never heard of," Berg was a show-business pioneer (and an Emmy- and Tony-winning actress) who paved the way for Lucille Ball, Norman Lear and Oprah Winfrey.
Many interviewed in the film, including Lear and NPR’s Susan Stamberg, speak of Berg as the fairy godmother of the sitcom. Others affectionately describe The Goldbergs as the archetype of the American working-class clan.
So beloved was the show about the immigrant family in the Bronx and its optimistic, big-hearted matriarch, Molly (played by Berg), that FDR is believed to have said that it was Molly, not him, who got America through the Depression. Molly, whose neighbors in a Bronx tenement called "yoo-hoo" across the airshaft seeking advice, dispensed wisdom, recipes and hope.
Still, the most powerful woman on the airwaves was powerless in the face of anti-communist agitation. The nation’s shift from FDR liberalism to Eisenhower centrism proved to be The Goldbergs’ undoing. Philip Loeb, the fine actor who played Berg’s husband on TV, was a unionist targeted by anti-communists.
Berg fought for Loeb — threatening her sponsor, General Foods, with a boycott if it pressured him to quit. But the nervous sponsor and network prevailed. Loeb quit voluntarily to save the show, a move that ruined The Goldbergs and led to Loeb’s eventual suicide.
Over a 25-year career in radio and television, Berg — married to a chemical engineer on the team that invented instant coffee — wrote about 12,000 scripts, establishing a personal brand comparable to that of Winfrey.
In Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Kempner gives us a balance of artist and alter ego, introducing us to a woman we’d like to know even better.
Exclusive: Landmark Inwood, Dallas
— Carrie Rickey Philadelphia Inquirer
DFW.com is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impractical for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since DFW.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not DFW.com.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators; we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
