Candice Bergen: a knockout combo of beauty, talent and wit

November 9, 12:55 AMLady Boomer ExaminerDena Kouremetis

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Even the sound of her name has made men melt.  Females no doubt wonder how one woman could get so disgustingly lucky -- a celebrity's daughter with porcelain skin, abundant blond hair and a damn-near perfect nose. Some of us may even imitate Candice Bergen's low-tenored, sexy voice spewing brilliant one-liners. It only makes us understand why legions of male characters through more than ninety episodes of Boston Legal harbored fantasies in her presence.

Beverly Hills born and bred, Bergen came into the world in 1946, the daughter of famed ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen.  Sent to boarding schools both in the U.S. and abroad, she made her debut on her father’s radio show at the age of six. Not the picture-perfect student academically, Bergen instead resorted to supporting her passion for photography for a while as a Ford model.

Bergen’s Imdb.com bio describes her introduction to the silver screen with , “Candace made an auspicious film debut while still a college student portraying the Vassar-styled lesbian member of Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966) in an ensemble that included the debuts of other lovely up-and-comers including Joan Hackett, Jessica Walter and Joanna Pettet.”  Evidently, the film was a non-starter.

Many of us remember her as a missionary’s daughter starring opposite Steve McQueen in the 1966 movie, The San Pebbles. Other early films include a role as a coed in the controversial film, Carnal Knowledge and opposite Sean Connery in The Wind and the Lion in 1975.

Bergen’s icy cool manner did not reap critical accolades, however, so she dove headfirst into a career as a photojournalist, with her work eventually appearing in magazines such as Playboy, Esquire and Life.

She re-emerged as the first female guest host of Saturday Night Live in 1975, displaying her comedic talents for the first time, and went on to play Burt Reynolds’ hearing-challenged ex-wife in Starting Over.   You may also remember her as Jaqueline Bisset’s sidekick in George Cukor’s Rich and Famous in 1981, a film in which her mother, Frances Bergen had a cameo role.

Ever the staunch feminist, Bergen married for the first time at the age of 34, later in life than many of her Boomer peers.  French director Louis Malle, fourteen years her senior, was to provide her with her only child, Chloe.  On the subject of marriage, Bergen remarked, “I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.”

Bergen reached her stride as a cynical, quick-witted anchor and reporter in CBS TV’s Murphy Brown in 1988. The sitcom lasted ten seasons and earned Bergen five Emmys and two Golden Globe awards.  “At an age when most actresses are being phased out, I am being phased in, with a vengeance,” said Bergen.
The actress left public life for a while in 1995, when her husband died of cancer.  She later resurfaced in memorable roles in the movies, Miss Congeniality and Sweet Home Alabama, among others, and subsequently signed on in a leading role as no-nonsense attorney Shirley Schmidt in Boston Legal, a five-season show that reaped her a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actor’s Guild Award and several Emmy nominations as well.

In 2000, Bergen married Marshall Rose, a Manhattan real estate developer.  In a 2005 Liz Smith interview for Good Housekeeping Magazine, Bergen explains that she never thought she would remarry.  “Our daughter, Chloe, was growing up,” she said, “ and I thought I'd devote myself to her. But I was so lucky. Now I just pinch myself every day for meeting and marrying Marshall and for being able to live in New York City with him, to travel, and to see Chloe having a swell time in her freshman year at college. I really am blessed. But this marriage is entirely different, in the sense that my two husbands couldn't be more different. One was French and an artist, and the other is American and a businessman and philanthropist. So that's quite a contrast. I've had the best of both worlds, really.”

LadyBoomers can relate to Bergen playing Carrie Bradshaw's 'older' Vogue editor friend in Sex and the City, Bergen's character, when she chastises Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), for dating an older man (Mikhail Baryshnikov). She chides, "There are no men, anywhere. I am a 50-something woman and there's a very small pool, it's very small, it's a wading pool, really. So what I want to know, is why are you swimming in my wading pool?"

With an elegant and Grace-Kelly-like demeanor, Bergen seems not to have permitted her celebrity to dominate her life. 

A few sage Bergenesque observations include:

“Acting has never done anything for me except encourage my vanity and provoke my arrogance.” 

She once admitted, “People see you as an object, not as a person, and they project a set of expectations onto you. People who don't have it think beauty is a blessing, but actually it sets you apart."

One of her most memorable, however, is “Hollywood is like Picasso's bathroom.”

If this is true, Bergen has represented Lady Boomers with total grace from within its porcelain-laden surroundings.

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Sources: Imdb.com and brainyquote.com