Bertha Brainard
Encyclopedia
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
executive responsible for setting trends in network broadcasting.
She was born and raised in South Orange, NJ, the daughter of Henry Brainard (a former journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and publisher) and his wife Ada. After graduating high school, she attended a teacher's college in nearby Montclair, but subsequently decided she did not want to teach. During the war, she drove an ambulance for the Red Cross, and with some encouragement from her brother, she decided to try to find work in the new medium of radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
(Hilmes, 47) She became a theater critic, and began hosting a program called "Broadcasting Broadway" for WJZ in Newark beginning in March 1922 (Scully, 39). By 1923, she became the station's assistant program director, helping to select the live performers and later doing critiques of the station's announcers. By October 1926, she had moved up to program manager (Kaiser, RA3).
After she became head of programming for NBC in 1928, the network's first woman executive, she began pushing for singer-bandleader Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
to host a variety series by explaining that only a woman could understand the appeal of Vallée's voice.
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour was a pioneering musical variety radio program broadcast on NBC from 1929 to 1936, when it became The Royal Gelatin Hour, continuing until 1939...
(aka The Rudy Vallée Show, aka The Fleischmann Yeast Hour, aka The Fleischmann Hour) was then launched as a musical variety radio program on NBC from 1929 to 1936, when it became The Royal Gelatin Hour, continuing until 1939.
Beginning October 24, 1929, the show quickly became a top-rated program, second only to Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy is a situation comedy set in the African-American community. It was very popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s on both radio and television....
. Host Vallée appeared along with regulars Ole Olsen
Ole Olsen (comedian)
John Sigvard "Ole" Olsen was an American vaudevillian and comedian.Born in Peru, Indiana, he graduated from Northwestern University in 1912 with a degree in music and hit the Vaudeville circuit...
and Chic Johnson
Chic Johnson
Chic Johnson was the barrel-chested half of the Swedish-American comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, known for his strangely infectious, high-pitched laugh.-Background:...
(1932), followed by Tom Howard and George Shelton (1935). On this show, the American listening audience heard many future stars for the first time, as it introduced such talents as Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
, Burns and Allen
Burns and Allen
Burns and Allen, an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, worked together as a comedy team in vaudeville, films, radio and television and achieved great success over four decades.-Vaudeville:...
, Alice Faye
Alice Faye
Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...
, the Mills Brothers
Mills Brothers
The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed as The Four Mills Brothers, were an American jazz and pop vocal quartet of the 20th century who made more than 2,000 recordings that combined sold more than 50 million copies, and garnered at least three dozen gold records...
and Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
. Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
made her radio debut. Other guests included Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, Fannie Brice, Ilka Chase
Ilka Chase
Ilka Chase was an American actress and novelist.Born in New York City and educated at convent and boarding schools in the United States, England, and France, she was the only child of Edna Woolman Chase, the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, and her first husband, Francis Dane Chase.Chase made...
, Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
and Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...
.
Brainard also introduced satire to radio by commissioning Raymond Knight
Raymond Knight (radio)
Raymond Knight was an actor, comedian and comedy writer, best known as a pioneer in satirical humor for network radio....
to create a comedy show. Knight was writing continuity and commercials for NBC in 1929, when Brainard asked him to devise "something cuckoo" for the Blue Network. He responded with the zany The Cuckoo Hour
The Cuckoo Hour
The Cuckoo Hour, aka The KUKU Hour and The Raymond Knight Cuckoo Hour, was an NBC radio series created in 1929 by radio comedian Raymond Knight....
(aka The KUKU Hour) as a showcase for his wacky humor, performing as Ambrose J. Weems.
Brainard remained an NBC executive until 1946 when she married advertising executive Curt Peterson, with whom she had worked over the years. Her retirement and marriage were brief, as she died of a heart attack later that year.