Janet Nelson Berger, who began her career as a secretary at CBS in the mid-1950s before rising to become a production assistant and casting director in an era when few women held managerial roles in network television, has died. She was 87.
Berger died July 22 at her home in Los Angeles of pneumonia and complications from a stroke, her husband, Emmy-winning producer Robert “Buzz” Berger, said.
Janet Berger worked often for producer Herbert Brodkin, first at CBS and later at his independent company, Plautus Productions.
She contributed to 19 episodes of the acclaimed CBS anthology program Playhouse 90 — including a live, color adaptation by George Balanchine of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in 1958 — and to a 1959 production of Hamlet for CBS’ DuPont Show of the Month. (Both were directed by Ralph Nelson.)
Later, she contributed to such socially conscious 1960s drama series as The Defenders, The Doctors and the Nurses and For the People.
Born in New Jersey, Janet Dolores Nelson graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School and earned an associate degree in English from Georgetown Visitation Junior College in Washington.
She married fellow casting director Buzz Berger in 1963, and the couple lived for nearly six years in London as he graduated to producing. During this time, she studied French culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu and traveled widely throughout Europe, accompanying and assisting her husband on location.
They returned to the U.S. in 1971, settling first in New York City and later dividing their time between New Canaan, Connecticut, and L.A.
Buzz’s productions during this period included the five-part 1978 NBC miniseries Holocaust, which starred Meryl Streep and James Woods and was produced by Brodkin and filmed in Vienna (that earned him his Emmy); and docudramas about Andrei Sakharov (starring Jason Robards), Edward R. Murrow (Daniel J. Travanti) and Nelson Mandela (Danny Glover).
Janet Berger remained active in philanthropic work throughout her life, serving on advisory boards and fund-raising committees for such institutions as the AFI, the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and the L.A. County Museum of Art.
She was also an avid tennis player and a member of the Queen’s Club in London and the Riviera Tennis Club.
In addition to her husband, survivors include their son, James, and her younger brother, Jerry.
