Aviva Kempner, 62, makes documentaries about unsung Jewish heroes. The New York filmmaker had a critical hit in 1998 with "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg," about the player often described as baseball's first Jewish superstar.
"Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg," her new movie, focuses on Gertrude Berg, whose long-running radio and TV show, "The Goldbergs," was a pioneering sitcom and family comedy in the 1940s and '50s.Berg played the lead, Molly, a warmhearted matriarch who opened the show leaning out her apartment window, calling: "Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Bloom."
Berg also produced the series and wrote 12,000 scripts in her career -- she was a hard-working, astute and highly successful businesswoman. But Molly's generous spirit is apparent in Berg's efforts to help co-star Philip Loeb, whose career was ruined by the blacklist.
"Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg" opens commercially Aug. 7.
Q: I'm not sure the general public is aware how much fundraising is a problem for documentary makers.
A: "Hank" took 13 years because it took so long to raise the money. Molly has taken six. My line about how I raise money is the last line of "A Streetcar Named Desire": I depend on the kindness of strangers. Although I realized a long time ago Blanche says that as she's about to go off to the loony bin. I've finished Molly, but I still need to raise $150,000. The natural audience for this movie is 65 and above, so every day I'm losing my audience. I figure it's more important to get the film out and less important being in debt.
Q: TV in the early 1950s was full of ethnic shows, including "The Goldbergs," "Amos 'n' Andy," even an Italian show called "Life With Luigi." Later, the diversity disappeared.
A: The cultural critic Robert Thompson says it in the film. The shows went off (the air) when the working-class people "made it" -- post-World War II, post-Korea -- and moved to the suburbs. There's been a revival somewhat, maybe of other groups, Latinos, etc. I think there's one show with a young Arab guy. You don't get as many accents (today), unless they're the people killing or kidnapping.
Q: Looking at the show today, some people might say it trades on stereotypes. But the film says the show actually departed from earlier stereotypes.
A: I don't think (in the show) that you have the suffering mother. I don't think you have the dominating mother, the joke-filled mother. Did you see Woody Allen's "New York Stories," with the mother in the sky saying, "You will do this"? I found that insidious. I think there's a lot of care and loving (in Molly). There's some meddling, which has a lot to do with being in an apartment building. There's no privacy there.
Q: Berg played a sweetheart, but I've read words like "sophisticated," "tough" and "demanding" applied to her.
A: We said she was a dictator on the set. As a businesswoman, you don't (easily) establish a media empire, like Oprah has done today. When a woman accomplishes a lot, she's called bitchy, demanding. When a man does it, he's got a lot of balls, he has incredible spirit. It's utterly amazing that every day she would wake up, write one of those 12,000 scripts, go and produce, and then seamlessly go on the set and be this accented, loving mother.
Q: The Philip Loeb story, which is kind of a subplot, is heartbreaking.
A: When I decided to do "Hank Greenberg," I didn't know that at the end of his career, he was one of the few opposing players to greet Jackie Robinson. When I decided to do Gertrude Berg, I didn't know she has this incredible chemistry with a fellow actor who played the main other part, whom she had to defend from the blacklist. God inspires me to make films about heroes, and God delivers with great subplots.
(E-mail Walter Addiego at waddiego(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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