The outsized cultural output of a borough with fewer than 5,000 residents
For a borough of fewer than 5,000 people packed into 0.59 square miles, Jenkintown's cultural footprint is difficult to explain through statistics. Three nationally recognized entertainers — an Oscar-winning actor, a television creator, and a comedian-turned-animation-showrunner — all came from the same small borough in Montgomery County, PA. The odds of that happening by chance are low enough that it demands some acknowledgment.
The Kroll-Mulaney connection in particular is a piece of local history that doesn't appear in Wikipedia but has been referenced repeatedly in interviews and live performances: both men attended school in the Jenkintown area, their friendship formed here, and their later collaboration — including the Broadway show Oh, Hello — has roots in that shared origin.
Bradley Cooper grew up in Jenkintown and attended Germantown Academy in Fort Washington before pursuing a career in acting. He is one of the most recognized actors of his generation: Oscar nominations for Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper, and A Star Is Born, which he also directed. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for A Star Is Born.
Cooper is consistently identified with Jenkintown in local and national press, though the borough doesn't always appear in his official Wikipedia hometown listing (which sometimes notes his Germantown Academy address). His connection to the borough is real and repeatedly acknowledged.
Adam F. Goldberg grew up in Jenkintown in the 1980s and turned that childhood into one of ABC's longest-running sitcoms. The Goldbergs premiered in 2013 and ran for 11 seasons through 2024, set explicitly in 1980s Jenkintown with the borough's actual streets, schools, and neighborhood geography woven through every episode.
Goldberg's childhood in the borough is specific enough that longtime residents can identify the houses, the families, and the events that appear fictionalized in the show. The Kremps of Newbold Road — a real Jenkintown family — were featured in a CBS Philadelphia story at the show's launch, noting that the fictional Goldberg house was modeled on their street.
Nick Kroll grew up in the Jenkintown area and attended Rydal Elementary School before moving to the Collegiate School in New York. He is known for The Kroll Show on Comedy Central, the animated Netflix series Big Mouth (which he co-created with Andrew Goldberg and others, and voices multiple characters), and his Broadway collaboration with John Mulaney, Oh, Hello, which played at the Lyceum Theatre in 2016–17 before an extended run.
The friendship between Kroll and Mulaney has its origins in their school years in the Jenkintown area. Both have referenced the connection in interviews and on stage. This Jenkintown origin of the Kroll-Mulaney friendship predates their public careers and isn't widely documented online, but has been acknowledged repeatedly in their work together.
John Mulaney spent formative years in the Jenkintown area before his family relocated to Chicago. He attended school in the area during the same period Nick Kroll did, and the two have remained friends and collaborators. Oh, Hello on Broadway — their joint show about two elderly Upper West Side New Yorkers — drew on a friendship that started in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Mulaney identifies primarily with Chicago in his stand-up material, but his Pennsylvania years and the friendship formed here are a documented part of his biography. His podcast work and interviews have both referenced the Jenkintown-area connection with Kroll explicitly.
Friederike Baer is a German-born American historian and professor at Penn State Abington. She is the author of The Trial of Frederick Eberle: Language, Patriotism, and Citizenship in Philadelphia's German Community, 1790–1830 and has written extensively on the German-American experience, German identity in Pennsylvania, and early American history. Her academic work connects directly to the region's history as one of the original centers of German immigration to the colonies.
Fleming served as a Pennsylvania state politician and is listed among notable Jenkintown-born residents in historical borough records. A figure from an earlier era of Montgomery County political history.