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Gertrude was born in New York City and her father owned a summer resort hotel. In her teens she wrote dialogues about her father and grandfather and recited them to guests at the hotel. This was the beginning of her writing which eventually led her to write "The Goldbergs." She married British-born chemical engineer Lewis Berg and they moved to Louisiana, where they lived on a sugar plantation for many years. Eventually they moved back to New York and to the same neighborhood where Gertrude had grown up. In her late 20s she returned to college; during this time a friend took her to a radio network executive, to whom she read one of her scripts. He liked it so much that he said he would put the show on the radio as a series if she would play the leading role. It premiered in 1929 and lasted until 1946 with over 5000 scripts. In 1949, "The Goldbergs" debuted on television and had a five-year run. According to Gertrude, she turned out over 15 million words and 10,000 performances during this run. Gertrude was a lady of great modesty who was universally loved and respected. But she did keep track of career with scrapbooks that reached over 100. She was regarded as homey as apple pie. Milton Berle called her "Goodness personified." Actress Faye Emerson said she had "the face of mother." Gertrude's career included stage, screen, record albums, books, and live television.

The preeminent Russian actor, at least in Western eyes, of the first half of the twentieth century. He became interested in the theatre as a teenager and joined the Teatr Mariinskij as a stagehand in 1918. He apprenticed with various traveling companies and therein learned ballet, pantomime, and acrobatics. He studied at the St. Petersburg (Leningrad) Theater Institute and made his stage debut in 1926. The following year, he entered films and his commanding presence soon brought him leading roles and enormous acclaim, as well as the approbation of the Soviet leadership, which elected him a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. His greatest fame world-wide came with his work in the films of Sergei Eisenstein. Following the masterpieces _Aleksandr Nevsky (1938)_ and _Ivan Groznyj I (1945)_ he was named to the Order of Lenin and made People's Artist of the USSR, respectively. He died in 1966. He should not be confused with the actor Nikolay P. Cherkasov who starred in many Russian films.

From school year 1961-62 until 1966, Václav Vích taught filming at the new born Institute for Cinema and Television (Cine-TV) in Rome, Italy. Actually he was one of the co-founder of Cine-TV, with the legendary principal Prof. Dora Besesti. Cine-TV is now named after Roberto Rossellini and is one of the main specialized secondary public schools of Cinema, Television, Photography, Ad Graphic and visual forming set crews in Italy. Many students became successful professionals in Italy and around the world.