On June 14, Bonhams & Butterfields will auction off the Tony Award that Gertrude Berg won for best lead actress in a play in 1959. Berg was honored for her performance in "A Majority of One" as a Jewish widow who surmounts her prejudice against Japanese people (whom she blames for her son's death in World War II) and falls in love with a Japanese tycoon. At the Tonys, she beat Claudette Colbert ("The Marriage-Go-Round"), Lynn Fontanne ("The Visit"), Kim Stanley ("A Touch of the Poet") and Maureen Stapleton ("The Cold Wind and the Warm").

The comedy written by Leonard Spigelgass ran 556 performances on Broadway after opening at the Shubert Theatre in February, 1959. It was nominated for four Tonys — actress, director (Dore Schary), actor (Cedric Hardwicke) and scenic design — but only Berg won.

Back in the 1950s, Berg specialized in portraying demonstrative Jewish matrons. She won the Emmy as best actress of 1951 for "The Goldbergs," a TV sitcom based upon her hit radio show about a boisterous, big-hearted, buttinsky Jewish momma living in New York City. At the Emmys, she beat Helen Hayes, Imogene Coca, Bette White and Judith Anderson.

However, Berg wasn't considered a big enough box-office draw when the feature film of "A Majority of One" was produced in 1961. The lead role went to Rosalind Russell, who won one of her record five Golden Globes (best comedy/musical actress). "A Majority of One" also won best musical/comedy picture and best film promoting international understanding. It was only nominated for one Oscar (cinematography — it lost to "West Side Story"), but helmer Mervyn LeRoy was nommed by the Directors Guild of America (he lost to Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for "West Side Story") and Leonard Spigelgass scored a WGA bid for adapting his Broadway play to screen (he lost to George Axelrod for "Breakfast at Tiffany's").

Bonham's sets the sale estimate for Gertrude Berg's Tony Award at $1,000 to $1,200, which seems just about right. A few years ago I paid $8,000 for a much more lofty Tony statuette: the trophy Richard Barr earned for producing 1964 best play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

There was a lot of hubbub lately over the alleged sale of the Tony won by Florence Klotz for designing the costumes to Broadway musical flop "Grind" (1985). The minimum bid at EBay was set ridiculously high — at $10,000. That auction page at EBay claims it sold for $20,000, but if you look closely at the details of the alleged sale, there was only one bid from someone who's ID is kept anonymous. That's very suspicious. Makes you wonder if that bid was logged by the statuette's owner in order to save face when it didn't sell for a more realistic market price — or if that was one of those joke bids placed by an eBay prankster who has no intention of paying up. I'd be shocked if it actually sold for that much.

Photos: Bonhams & Butterfields, CBS

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