Candice Bergen

Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress, producer and former fashion model. She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown, for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal, for which she was nominated for two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Her first film was The Group (1965), which was based on Mary McCarthy's novel of the same name. She starred in several major films throughout the mid-1960s to early 1980s such as The Sand Pebbles, Carnal Knowledge, The Wind and the Lion, and Gandhi and received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1979 film Starting Over. Her later career includes character roles in Miss Congeniality (2000) and Sweet Home Alabama (2002). In her later roles, she could often be seen playing an authority figure or social status symbol. --- Bergen was born in Beverly Hills, California. Her mother, Frances Bergen (née Westerman), was a Powers model who was known professionally as Frances Westcott. Her father, Edgar Bergen, was a ventriloquist, comedian, and actor. Her paternal grandparents were Swedish-born immigrants who anglicized their surname, which was originally "Bergren". As a child, Candice was irritated at being described as "Charlie McCarthy's little sister" (referring to her father's star dummy). Bergen began appearing on her father's radio program at a young age, and in 1958, at age eleven, 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 acknowledges that her failure to take her education seriously resulted in her being asked to leave. She received an honorary doctorate from Penn in May 1992. She worked as a fashion model before she took up acting. Bergen made her screen debut playing an aloof university student in The Group (1966), which delicately touched on the then-forbidden subject of lesbianism. Her second film in 1966 was The Sand Pebbles, in which she played Shirley Eckert, an assistant school teacher and missionary opposite Steve McQueen. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards. --- During the 1960s, Bergen dated and lived with Terry Melcher, a music producer and the son of Doris Day. The couple 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 1969 by followers of Charles Manson. There was some initial speculation that Melcher may have been the intended victim, although Melcher, his former roommate Mark Lindsay, and Vincent Bugliosi have all indicated Manson was aware Melcher was no longer living at that address at the time of the murders. On September 27, 1980, she married French film director Louis Malle (Bergen herself has traveled extensively and speaks French fluently). They had one child, a daughter named Chloe, in 1985. The couple were married until Malle's death from cancer on Thanksgiving Day in 1995. Since June 15, 2000, she has been married to New York real estate magnate and philanthropist Marshall Rose.