Berta Gersten was born in 1894 in Krakow, which was then part of western Galicia.
At the age of eight-and-a-half, she immigrated to the United States, and here completed public and high school.
Since she had a good voice, she then decided to go into vaudeville and performed for nine months at Kopelman’s Vaudeville Theatre.
In 1915 she saw the renown Yiddish actor David Kessler act and decided to join the legitimate theatre. She later crossed over to Thomashefsky’s theatre, and some time later she became one of the first members of Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre, where she remained except for short breaks, until 1928. The next season she chose to act at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, but for the following season she returned to the Yiddish Art Theatre.
She specialized as a dramatic actress.
Berta Gersten starred in the title role of the 1939 Yiddish film, “Mi-rele Efros.” She also played in the Yiddish films, "Yiskor" and "God, Man and Devil," which was based on the play written by the famous Yiddish playwright, Jacob Gordin. She also played in an English-language film, "The Benny Goodman Story," which was released in 1956. She played Mama Goodman, Benny Goodman's mother.
In an article in an edition of the New York Tribune newspaper of October 17, 1920, Berta talks about acting. The author of the article wrote this:
"And then there is Miss Gersten -- Berta Gersten -- the leading lady, an interesting and attractive-looking young woman. Miss Gersten does a very "heavy" part in a play by Peretz Hirshbein called "The Golden Chain," which is being played at the Irving Place Theatre. She portrays so much intense emotion that a natural query would be as to how much of herself she puts into every part.
Berta then mentions this about acting:
“Every bit of me," she answered. "It is something I can't remedy. Many actors have told me that they can simulate any sort of emotion when they are acting. But I have always had to put my whole soul and life into my part. When I shudder or cry on the stage, it is because I am really living the part I am portraying.
"How do I prepare for a part? I always attend the reading of a play, and then and there form a mental picture of my character. I take her home with me and live her life in my imagination, as I can see it up to the time of the play. I go over every phase of her life that could have developed her into the woman she is--and then I learn my lines. That is the simplest part of preparing a character, because that is only memory work. I do have to worry about the interpretation and the expression. They come naturally when you are familiar with the life of the person you are trying to be.
"I see a great future for the Yiddish stage, and I believe it will not be very long before we have our John and Ethel Barrymores. The young people of the Yiddish acting profession have brought with their histrionic ability an idealism that cannot help but raise the standards of the Yiddish theatre, and I find that they are working together very harmoniously to carry on the work started by Mr. [Maurice] Schwartz and the Yiddish Art Theatre. Wasn't it Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, 'It is not so much where we stand, but the direction in which we are going that counts'?"
