With a heavy heart in a tearful farewell to 76-year-old actress Candice Bergen, goodbye Bergen

With a heavy heart in a tearful farewell to 76-year-old actress Candice Bergen, goodbye BergenShow more

With a heavy heart in a tearful farewell to 76-year-old actress Candice Bergen, goodbye Bergen

#candicebergen

Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress. She won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of the title character on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown (1988–1998, 2018). She is also known for her role as Shirley Schmidt on the ABC drama Boston Legal (2005–2008). In films, Bergen 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 cover of Vogue before she made her screen debut in the film The Group (1966). She starred 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 starred 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), Book Club (2018) and Let Them All Talk (2020).

Candice Patricia Bergen was born May 9, 1946, at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles, California.[1][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 ventriloquist, comedian, and actor. Her paternal grandparents were Swedish immigrants who anglicized their surname, which was originally Berggren ("mountain branch").

Bergen was raised in Beverly Hills, California, and attended the Harvard-Westlake School.[4] As a child, she was often described as "Charlie McCarthy's little sister", which irritated her (referring to her father's star dummy).[5]

She began appearing on her father's radio program at a young age,[6] 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.[7]

She worked as a fashion model before she took up acting, featured on the covers of Vogue. She received her acting training at HB Studio[8] in New York City.

Bergen made her screen debut playing a university student in the ensemble film The Group (1966), directed by Sidney Lumet, who knew Bergen's family. The film delicately touched on the subject of lesbianism.[9] The film was a critical and financial success.

After the film's success, Bergen left college to focus on her career. 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.[10]

She guest starred on an episode of Coronet Blue, whose director Sam Wanamaker recommended her for a part in the comedy The Day the Fish Came Out (1967) directed by Michael Cacoyannis, distributed by Fox. The film was a box-office flop, but Fox nevertheless signed her to a long-term contract.

Bergen was announced for the role of Anne in Valley of the Dolls,[11] but did not appear in the film.

Bergen went to France to appear in Claude Lelouch's romantic drama Live for Life (1967) opposite Yves Montand, popular in France but not the US.[9]

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

She was featured in a 1970 political satire, The Adventurers, based on a novel by Harold Robbins, playing a frustrated socialite. Her salary was $200,000.[12] The film received negative reviews, and while it did respectable business at the box office, it did not help her career.[13] Bergen called it a "movie out of the 1940s."[14]

Bergen played the girlfriend of Elliott Gould in Getting Straight (1970), a counterculture movie which drew another spate of bad reviews, but was commercially profitable. She said it took her career in "a new direction... my first experience with democratic, communal movie making."[14]

She also starred in the controversial Western Soldier Blue (1970), an overseas success 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.