Candice Bergen

Candice Bergen
Bergen at the 2006 Peabody Awards
Born Candice Patricia Bergen[1]
(1946-05-09) May 9, 1946
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania
Occupation Actress, fashion model
Years active 1965–present
Spouse(s)
Louis Malle
(m. 1980; d. 1995)

Marshall Rose
(m. 2000)
Children 1
Parent(s) Frances Bergen
Edgar Bergen

Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress and former fashion model. She won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her ten seasons as the title character on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown (1988–98, 2018–present). She is also known for her role as Shirley Schmidt on the ABC drama Boston Legal (2005–08). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Starting Over (1979), and for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Gandhi (1982).

Bergen began her career as a fashion model and appeared on the front cover of Vogue before she made her screen debut in the 1966 film The Group. She went on to star in The Sand Pebbles (1966), Soldier Blue (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), and The Wind and the Lion (1975). She made her Broadway debut in the 1984 play Hurlyburly, and went on to star in the revivals of The Best Man (2012) and Love Letters (2014). From 2002 to 2004, she appeared in three episodes of the HBO series Sex and the City. Her other film roles include Miss Congeniality (2000), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Women (2008), Bride Wars (2009), and Book Club (2018).

Early life

Bergen was born in Beverly Hills, California.[2] Her mother, Frances Bergen (née Westerman), was a Powers model who was known professionally as Frances Westcott.[3] Her father, Edgar Bergen, was a famous ventriloquist, comedian, and actor. Her paternal grandparents were Swedish-born immigrants who anglicized their surname, which was originally Berggren ("mountain branch").

As a child, Candice was irritated at being described as "Charlie McCarthy's little sister" (referring to her father's star dummy).[4]

She began appearing on her father's radio program at a young age,[5] and in 1958, at age 11, with her father on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life, as Candy Bergen. She said that when she grew up, she wanted to design clothes.

She later attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she was elected both Homecoming Queen and Miss University, but, as Bergen later acknowledged, she failed to take her education seriously and after failing two courses in art and opera, she was asked to leave at the end of her sophomore year. She ultimately received an honorary doctorate from Penn in May 1992.[6]

She worked as a fashion model before she took up acting, featured on the covers of Vogue.

Career

Early films

In 1966, Bergen made her screen debut playing a university student in The Group, directed by Sidney Lumet, which delicately touched on the subject of lesbianism.

The same year, she played the role of Shirley Eckert, an assistant school teacher in The Sand Pebbles (1966) with Steve McQueen. The movie was nominated for several Academy Awards and was a big financial success. It was made for 20th Century Fox.

She guest starred on an episode of Coronet Blue.

European Films

Bergen went to France to appear in Claude Lelouch's Live for Life (1967) opposite Yves Montand, popular in France but not the US.

Then she went to Greece for The Day the Fish Came Out (1967) directed by Michael Cacoyannis, distributed by Fox but a huge flop.

In 1968, she played the leading female role in The Magus, a British mystery film also starring Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, that was almost universally ridiculed on its release and another flop.

Return to Hollywood

She was featured in a 1970 political satire, The Adventurers, based on a novel by Harold Robbins, playing a frustrated socialite. Reviews were terrible but the film made money.[7]

Bergen played the girlfriend of Elliot Gould in Getting Straight (1970), a counter-culture movie which was commercially popular. She also starred in the controversial Western Soldier Blue (1970), a worldwide hit but a failure in its homeland, perhaps because of its unflattering portrayal of the U.S. Cavalry. The film's European success led to Bergen's being voted by British exhibitors as the seventh-most popular star at the British box office in 1971.[8]

Bergen received some strong reviews for her support role in Carnal Knowledge (1971), directed by Mike Nichols. Bergen did a Western with Oliver Reed, The Hunting Party (1971), then had the lead role in a drama T.R. Baskin (1971).

Bergen was absent from screens for a number of years. She returned with a support part in a British heist film, 11 Harrowhouse (1974), then did a Western with Gene Hackman and James Coburn, Bite the Bullet (1975).

In 1975, she replaced Faye Dunaway at the last minute to co-star with Sean Connery in The Wind and the Lion, as a strong-willed American widow kidnapped in the Moroccan desert.

Bergen was reunited with Hackman in The Domino Killings (1977) for Stanley Kramer. She did A Night Full of Rain (1978) for Lina Wertmüller and was the love interest of Ryan O'Neal in the Love Story sequel, Oliver's Story (1978).[9]

Comedy Films

Bergen appeared in the Burt Reynolds romantic comedy Starting Over (1979), for which she received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for best supporting actress.

She portrayed a best-selling author in Rich and Famous (1981) with Jacqueline Bisset.

In 1982, Bergen appeared in the Oscar-winning film Gandhi in which she portrayed documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White. Bergen was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.[10]

In 1984 she joined the Broadway cast of Hurlyburly.

On television, Bergen appeared as Morgan Le Fay in Arthur the King (1985) and in the miniseries Hollywood Wives (1985). She was Burt Reynolds' romantic interest in Stick (1985), and for TV appeared in Murder: By Reason of Insanity (1985) and Mayflower Madam (1987).

In addition to acting, Bergen has written articles, a play, and a memoir, Knock Wood (1984). She has also studied photography and worked as a photojournalist.

Murphy Brown

In 1988, she took the lead role in the sitcom Murphy Brown, in which she played a tough television reporter. The series provided her with the opportunity to show her little-seen comic talent, and although primarily a conventional sit-com, the show did tackle important issues. Murphy Brown, a recovering alcoholic, became a single mother and later battled breast cancer. In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized prime-time TV for showing the Murphy Brown character "mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice."[11]

Quayle's disparaging remarks were subsequently written into the show, with Murphy shown watching Quayle's speech in disbelief at his insensitivity and ignorance of the reality of the lives of single mothers. A subsequent episode explored the subject of family values within a diverse set of families. The Brown character arranges for a truckload of potatoes to be dumped in front of Quayle's residence, an allusion to an infamous incident in which Quayle erroneously directed a school child to spell the word "potato" as "potatoe". In reality, Bergen agreed with at least some of Quayle's observations, saying that while the particular remark was "an arrogant and uninformed posture", as a whole, it was "a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did."[12] Bergen's run on Murphy Brown was extremely successful. The show ran for ten seasons and between 1989 and 1998, Bergen was nominated for an Emmy Award seven times and won five. After her fifth win, she declined future nominations for the role.

Throughout the same time frame as Murphy Brown, Bergen also appeared as the main spokesperson for a Sprint telephone ad campaign.

She produced and starred in the TV movie Mary & Tim (1996).

Post-Murphy Brown

Bergen at the 65th Annual Peabody Awards in New York City, 2006

After playing the role of Murphy Brown, Bergen was offered a chance to work as a real-life journalist. After the run of Murphy Brown ended in 1998, CBS approached her to cover stories for 60 Minutes, an offer she declined, with the conviction that she didn't personally want to blur the lines between actor and journalist.

After Murphy Brown, Bergen hosted Exhale with Candice Bergen on the Oxygen network.

She also appeared in character roles in films, including Miss Congeniality (2000), where she played villainous pageant host Kathy Morningside; she also portrayed the mayor of New York in Sweet Home Alabama (2002) and appeared in the Gwyneth Paltrow flight-attendant comedy, View from the Top (2003).

She had roles in The In-Laws (2003), Footsteps (2003) and a semi recurring role on Sex in the City, where she played Enid Frick, Carrie Bradshaw's editor at Vogue.

In January 2005, Bergen joined the cast of the television series Boston Legal as Shirley Schmidt, a founding partner in the law firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt. She played the role for five seasons. In 2006 and 2008, she received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

A frequent host on NBC's Saturday Night Live, she was the first woman to host the show and the first host to do a second show. She was also the first woman to join the Five-Timers Club, when she hosted for the fifth time in 1990. Bergen guest-starred on The Muppet Show in its first year, appearing in several skits, an episode now available in a DVD collection. She was also featured in a long-running "Dime Lady" ad campaign for the Sprint phone company.

She has also made guest appearances on many other TV shows, including Seinfeld (as herself playing Murphy Brown), Law & Order, Family Guy, and Will & Grace (playing herself).

Bergan could be seen in The Women (2008) and Bride Wars (2009) as Marion St. Claire, New York's most sought-after wedding planner, who also serves as the narrator of the story.

From its launch in 2008, Candice Bergen was a contributor for wowOwow.com, a website for women to talk culture, politics and gossip. The website closed in 2010.

She was in The Romantics (2010) and had an occasional role on House as Lisa Cuddy's mother, starting in Season 7, including the 2011 episodes "Larger Than Life" and "Family Practice".

In 2010, she appeared in a one-night only concert semi staged reading of Evening Primrose by Stephen Sondheim.[13] She has also appeared on Broadway in the 2012 revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man and the 2014 revival of Love Letters.

Later performances included A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014), Beautiful & Twisted (2015), Rules Don't Apply (2016),The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017), Home Again (2017) and Book Club (2018).

Murphy Brown reboot

On January 24, 2018 it was announced that Candice Bergen would be reprising her role as Murphy Brown for a series revival to be aired on CBS in the 2018-2019 season.

Bergen Bags

In 2016,[14] Bergen began hand-painting,[15] with paint pens,[16] on handbags, with the business[17] overseen by Chloe Malle,[18] and the proceeds benefiting charity.[19][20][21][22]

Personal life

Candice Bergen and her mother Frances Bergen at the 62nd Academy Awards March 26, 1990

A political activist, Bergen accepted a date with Henry Kissinger. During her activist days she participated in a Yippie prank when she, Abbie Hoffman, and others threw dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1967, leading to its temporary shutdown. In 1972, she served as a fundraiser and organizer for George McGovern's presidential campaign.[23]

Bergen and former boyfriend Terry Melcher lived at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, which was later occupied by Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski. Tate and four others were murdered in the home in August 9, 1969, by followers of Charles Manson.[24] There was some initial speculation that Melcher may have been the intended victim,[25] although Melcher, his former roommate Mark Lindsay, and Vincent Bugliosi have all indicated Manson was aware that Melcher was no longer living at that address at the time of the murders.[26][27]

On September 27, 1980, she married French film director Louis Malle. They had one child, a daughter named Chloé Françoise, in 1985. The couple were married until Malle's death from cancer on Thanksgiving Day in 1995.[28] Bergen has traveled extensively and speaks French fluently. She has been married to New York real estate magnate and philanthropist Marshall Rose[29] since 2000.

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
1966 The Group Lakey Eastlake
1966 The Sand Pebbles Shirley Eckert
1967 The Day the Fish Came Out Electra Brown
1967 Live for Life Candice
1968 The Magus Lily
1970 The Adventurers Sue Ann Daley
1970 Getting Straight Jan
1970 Soldier Blue Cresta Maribel Lee
1971 Carnal Knowledge Susan
1971 The Hunting Party Melissa Ruger
1971 T.R. Baskin T. R. Baskin
1974 11 Harrowhouse Maren Shirell
1975 The Wind and the Lion Eden Pedecaris
1975 Bite the Bullet Miss Jones
1977 The Domino Principle Ellie Tucker
1978 A Night Full of Rain Lizzy
1978 Oliver's Story Marcie Bonwit
1979 Starting Over Jessica Potter Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
1981 Rich and Famous Merry Noel Blake
1982 Gandhi Margaret Bourke-White
1984 2010 SAL 9000 Voice only; credited as Olga Mallsnerd
1985 Stick Kyle McClaren
2000 Miss Congeniality Kathy Morningside
2002 Sweet Home Alabama Mayor Kate Hennings
2003 View from the Top Sally Weston
2003 The In-Laws Judy Tobias
2008 Sex and the City Enid Frick
2008 The Women Catherine Frazier
2009 Bride Wars Marion St. Claire
2010 The Romantics Augusta Hayes
2014 A Merry Friggin' Christmas Donna Mitchler
2016 Rules Don't Apply Nadine Henly
2017 The Meyerowitz Stories Julia
2017 Home Again Lillian Stewart
2018 Book Club Sharon

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1967 Coronet Blue Enid Toler Episode: "The Rebels"
1969 The Kraft Music Hall Various Episode: "The Woody Allen Special"
1975–2013 Saturday Night Live Herself 6 episodes
1976 The Muppet Show Herself Episode: "Candice Bergen"
1985 Hollywood Wives Elaine Conti 2 episodes
1985 Arthur the King Morgan le Fay Television film
1985 Murder: By Reason of Insanity Ewa Berwid Television film
1987 Trying Times Barbara Episode: "Moving Day"
1987 Mayflower Madam Sydney Biddle Barrows Television film
1988–98, 2018–present Murphy Brown Murphy Brown 247 episodes
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy (1989, 1992)
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (1989–90, 1992, 1994–95)
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy (1990–91, 1993–96)
Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (1991, 1993)
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series (1995–96)
1992 Seinfeld Murphy Brown Episode: "The Keys"
1994–95 Understanding Narrator 4 episodes
1996 Mary & Tim Mary Horton Television film
1997 Ink Murphy Brown Episode: "Murphy's Law"
2000 Family Guy Gloria Ironbox 2 episodes
2002–04 Sex and the City Enid Frick 3 episodes
2003 Footsteps Daisy Lowendahl Television film
2004 Law & Order Judge Amanda Anderlee Episode: "The Brotherhood"
2004 Will & Grace Herself Episode: "Strangers with Candice"
2005 Law & Order: Trial by Jury Judge Amanda Anderlee 3 episodes
2005–08 Boston Legal Shirley Schmidt 84 episodes
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (2006, 2008)
Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (2007–09)
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
2011 House Arlene Cuddy 3 episodes
2013 The Michael J. Fox Show Mike's Mom Episode: "Thanksgiving"
2014 Beautiful & Twisted Bernice Novack Television film
2015 Battle Creek Constance Episode: "Mama's Boy"
2016 Bojack Horseman The Closer (voice) Episode: "Stop the Presses"

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V27J-4HX
  2. ↑ Associated Press, "Daughter Born to Edgar Bergen's Wife", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Saturday 11 May 1946, Volume 52, page 1.
  3. ↑ Candice Bergen Biography (1946–)
  4. ↑ "So when I was born, it was only natural that I was known in the press not as Candice Bergen, but as "Charlie's sister."" (Bergen, "My Dad, Charlie and Me' in Jack Canfield, et al., A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul 1998:36
  5. ↑ "Bergen & McCarthy 55-12-25 Christmas (Guest Candice Bergen)", listed on Golden Age OTR's playlist on Live365.com
  6. ↑ "Entertainment & the Arts - Bergen Is Wimpy Compared To Alter-Ego Murphy - Seattle Times Newspaper". nwsource.com.
  7. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1970", Variety, 6 January 1971 p 11
  8. ↑ Peter Waymark. "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas." Times [London, England] 30 Dec. 1971: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 11 July 2012.
  9. ↑ "Ryan O'Neal: Does Father Know Best?: Ryan O'Neal". Los Angeles Times. 23 July 1978. p. v24.
  10. ↑ BAFTA (1983). "BAFTA Awards Database (Supporting Actress 1982)". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
  11. ↑ "Then & Now: Dan Quayle". CNN. 2005-08-08.
  12. ↑ "Candice Bergen agrees with Quayle". CNN. 2002-07-11. Archived from the original on November 3, 2007.
  13. ↑ Portantiere, Michael (2011). "Back into the light". The Sondheim Review. Sondheim Review, Inc. XVII (3): 44. ISSN 1076-450X.
  14. ↑ https://nypost.com/2016/06/03/candice-bergen-is-painting-on-purses-for-1000-each/
  15. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-kYhgBq4S
  16. ↑ https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/09/candice-bergen-designer-handbags-art
  17. ↑ http://bergenbags.com/
  18. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/bergenbags/
  19. ↑ https://www.charitybuzz.com/catalog_items/personalized-painting-by-candice-bergen-on-your-bag-1488505
  20. ↑ https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/a14429250/candice-bergen-bergen-bags/
  21. ↑ https://www.vogue.com/article/chloe-malle-candice-bergen-capitol-north-carolina-celebrity-fashion-photo-diary
  22. ↑ http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/article138461553.html
  23. ↑ McGovern, George S., Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern, New York: Random House, 1977, pp. 173, 247
  24. ↑ "Obituary Terry Melcher". telegraph.co.uk. 2004-11-23. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  25. ↑ "Doris Day's son, musician, writer, record producer". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 2004-11-23. pp. A–15. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  26. ↑ Nancy Adamson (June 8, 2013). "Mark Lindsay talks about new music, cats and Charlie Manson". Midland Reporter-Telegram.
  27. ↑ McKay (January 1983). "Two Faces of Cincinnati". Cincinnati Magazine. p. 94. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
  28. ↑ "Candice Bergen and her fine romances". CBS News. April 5, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2016.
  29. ↑ Heller, Karen (April 8, 2015). "Candice Bergen holds nothing back in memoir that discusses weight, beauty". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 20, 2016.
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