Candice Bergen

She always seemed grounded; well read, cultured, kind, and practical.

To me, she will forever be cool, sophisticated Lakey in The Group but love how she reinvented herself as a comedic actor in Starting Over.

BETTA THAN EVAH....AHMMMMMM BETTA THAN EVAH

An American that won't embarrass us overseas.

All those 5 Emmys really should have gone to other actresses.

But Hollywood thought she was "classy", so ....

And she was another "Nepo Baby".

Sounds like her father had a messed up relationship with that ventriloquist dummy, treating him like a family member

Nice lady.

She stunned...

She dated Terry Melcher and could have really been somebody, Doris Day’s daughter in law.

R8 lol

She IS Candice Bergen!

R8 Oh well.

Que sera, sera.

[quote] a show which ran for 11 years and received international acclaim.

I wonder how much of that acclaim would have come their way had the show not been so anti-Reagan and Clinton-friendly.

It was a good night for television. Murphy Brown, then Designing Women, then Newhart, and finally Kate and Allie. The Golden Age of television

OP's post reads like an obituary. I thought she died.

It was great the first few years. Later seasons, not so much.

I sat next to her once in the AA LAX Flagship lounge. She was reading the NY Times and we exchanged pleasantries. That's it.

I was watching a very old episode of SNL and she was the host. She gave Americans a disapproving lecture for not approving the Equal Rights Amendment.

Very preachy

"Cie is Me"

She was actually a bad actress when she started out. She got by in THE GROUP because Lakey was a small part that didn't require too much. When you see her in stuff like, THE SAND PEBBLES, THE MAGUS, THE WIND AND THE LION, and the dreadful T.R. BASKIN, there's not much there.

Mike Nichols knew how to use her well in CARNAL KNOWLEDGE and she's effective but Ann-Margret was the real revelation in that film.

It wasn't until STARTING OVER that she really learned how to relax as an actress and find her strong suit films of a more comedic nature. It's been mostly uphill ever since. In the recent, rather underwhelming Soderberg film LET THEM ALL TALK, I found her more interesting than Streep.

[quote]I found her more interesting than Streep.

Meryl no longer surprises.

blah blah blah

R19 Did you like her in Gandhi?

I always liked her. She outed herself as deciding to enjoy food in this stage of her life. Fucking good for her!!! So she ain’t a size 6 anymore .

She dresses well and exudes confidence. I wish I could adopt that attitude. Raquel Welch responded to a question as to how she kept so slim all these years ( I know she’s dead) “ I haven’t had anything good to eat in 50 years .”

R22, I honestly don't remember her from GHANDI, but I would wager that she didn't have enough true gravitas as an actress to really play Bourke-White well.

I guess less than two years at the University of Pennsylvania qualifies as being Ivy-league educated.

[quote] I honestly don't remember her from GHANDI

What about GANDHI? Do you remember her from that?

When I was a little kid I saw her in Mayflower Madame. I said "someday I wanna grow up and be a prostitute---only a male one"....And I did it!! She inspired me.

R24 She was good.

Granted she was acting in a class that consisted of Ben Kingsley, Rohini Hattangadi, Martin Sheen, John Mills, Trevor Howard, Edward Fox, Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey, Ian Charleson, Michael Hordern, Nigel Hawthorne, and Sir John Gielgud.

She's lucky she got out of 10050 Cielo Drive when she did.

R29: came on here to post about that. Whenever I see her in anything I always think how weird life is it’s luck/chance that you make it to older age and she didn’t die in 1969. Like how Kim Cattrall was meant to be on Pan Am 103 in 1988 but cancelled at the last minute to go and buy a teapot at Harrods.

Was she a lesbian?

Love Candice. Great thread. Her dad was a Vaudeville holdover and I'm not sure what Polly's main contribution was. But Candice. Takes no shit. Blonde bombshell. Smart as a whip. Holds her liquor. She's had a strong and enduring career. I'm not saying she's a super star or perfect. But as an actress, the universe has been good to her.

So funny in Moonlighting!

R32 I see what you did there. Fail!

Regardless what you think of her acting ability, you can't deny that she is intelligent and classier than more celebrities/public figures

I just wish she could get along better with her daughter Tori Spelling.

Mom...

I lover her for embracing her old age.

She was the best thing about Book Club

R34 Thank you for setting me straight. I have always thought Polly was her mom. Wow. Makes her accomplishments even more impressive. Also, I love that I am a part of this ragtag community where I can discuss who is or is not Candice Bergen's mother at 12:30AM on a Friday night while a sip a tasty Mezcal. I love the DL.

R40 I'm a Bordeaux man myself.

Brittle hag.

Yes, I think she was a lesbian.

This is third hand info, but I would consider my direct source reliable.

Anyway, my direct source (a lesbian) had a friend who socialized with Candice Bergen and Louis Malle (CB's deceased husband). My source's friend said that it was obviously a lavender marriage.

I do think CB and Louis Malle loved each other, but I think both are / were gay.

for a period of 10 years she appeared in many films in addition to The Group and Carnal Knowledge she was iimdb The Sand Pebbles (1966) Getting Straight, Soldier Blue, Live for Life, The Magus, The Day the Fish Came Out, The Hunting Party, 11 Harrowhouse, Bite the Bullet, T.R.Baskin, The Adventurers, The Wind and the Lion (1975) m she was an most of which were poor to mediocre. Along with Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Raquel Welch she was an international star and made films in Italy and France. Though beautiful she was not a sex symbol ala Raquel, Ann-Margret, Bardot . . .she was classy and intelligent.

It's funny how Frances looks better than Candice in that pic at R37

Related

[quote] She was actually a bad actress when she started out. She got by in THE GROUP because Lakey was a small part that didn't require too much. When you see her in stuff like, THE SAND PEBBLES, THE MAGUS, THE WIND AND THE LION, and the dreadful T.R. BASKIN, there's not much there.

You should take another look at T.R. Baskin (if you've actually ever seen it) because she's actually quite good in it, and the film itself is not bad.

Yes I too like TR Baskin and I agree she is good in it. Though the idea that she cannot get a date is silly.

R46 This thread is better, my pic actually worked

I just watched her in Starting Over, one of my favorite rom coms ever. She's hysterical as a bitchy pop music composer with a terrible voice. A perfect movie by Alan J.Pakula with pitch-perfect performances by her, Burt Reynolds and Jill Clayburgh.

R31 You tell me

Candy as a lez lez makes a certain amount of sense.

I absolutely love her, always have, since Rich and Famous (a movie i think is not very beloved here). I particularly liked her turn in Sex and the City, where she was underused but still manage to make an intriguing , snarky, character instead of a cheap Wintour impersonation.

She always seemed like she took her work, but not herself, seriously.

[quote]a movie i think is not very beloved here

It's no Old Acquaintance.

I loved Murphy Brown, it was quite funny. One scene I remember is when she was at the pharmacy and had pregnancy tests in her cart and encountered Miles in an aisle. He looked in her cart and grabbed a bottle of Maalox from the shelf and started swigging it.

[quote] She gave Americans a disapproving lecture for not approving the Equal Rights Amendment.

Apparently you're not familiar with how our government works. "Americans" did not vote on the ERA. Their representatives did.

[quote]Her mother was a model, her father was a ventriloquist, yet she became a high functioning star.

What does this even mean?

I like her persona, but she’s always seemed way too self aware as an actress. It works in some things, most notably Murphy Brown, but the material has to work for her, versus the other way around. As an aside, the casting of Murphy Brown was amazing. Colleen Dewhurst as her mother was perfect.

Bergen doing "The Jet"! in The Day the Fish Came Out a film as incomprehensible as its title.

Candice at the infamous Black and White Ball.

Shirley Schmidt Ho!

I remember, as a gayling, when Candice and her mom appeared together in Hollywood Wives.

She's remarkably normal for someone whose cold and distant ventriloquist dad openly loved his dummy more than his own daughter. That thing was in the will (she was not) it had it's own bedroom and parties and all types of shit. It sounds like a horror movie.

I saw a semi-recent interview with her where she talks about gaining weight. She talks about losing what I would call "pretty privilege." She seems like a decent person.

I always thought Terry Moocher was fug

Candice's brother Kris was hot

Aw, I liked Wind and the Lion. Sean Connery. And she was fun on Boston Legal.

The pathetic "I'm pasting this to feel important" OP just doesn't stop.

She has always been extraordinarily beautiful, as well as smart, so I think she would have been a banging success even if her parents had been soda jerks from Nebraska.

She’s a sista of SAPPHO

She was good in Boston Legal!

She went on a date with Donald Trump when she was attending University of Pennsylvania. She said she went home early.

I loved her in ‘Miss Congeniality’. FRANK!!!!!

Game show queen

She looked like Margaret Bourke-White

Good one R75. Candy was pretty and poised, even at 11.

She is a good actress. Not necessarily a comedic actress even though Murphy Brown was a comedy. It was an ensemble cast with Candice’s role playing it straight as Murphy Brown. I credit great writing first for its success then the ensemble cast including Candice B.

[quote] She went on a date with Donald Trump when she was attending University of Pennsylvania. She said she went home early.

I'm guessing that Trump turned off a lot of Caucasian, American women. (Bad personality, crude, etc.) So, he turned his sites to eastern Europe.

Over 20 years ago, I was in grad school in Los Angeles and was shopping at the Beverly Center. I was in Pottery Barn looking for who knows what, turned a blind corner and ran smack dab into Candice Bergen. I apologized and under my breath muttered, "You idiot, that was Murphy Brown..." and we smiled and went on our merry little respective ways.

Murphy Brown was a 1990s Mary Richards.

A friend of my parents went to see her father perform on a radio show. Even though it was a show geared towards children, the friend said during commercial breaks, Edgar Bergen told dirty jokes.

OP, why do you write like you think we’ve never heard of Candace Bergen?

Her accent is weird and affective.

R83 there are a lot of youngster on here and I taken enjoyment in writing a short and fun tidbit

Candy became an absolute liberal goddess when she got in that dispute with Dan Quayle. It was rather shabby of her to let Quayle take the heat so years when she admits he was right all along.

When she did TR Baskin, Pauline Kael said it was the worst lead performance she'd ever seen and then opined that if there were an acting contest between her and Ali McGraw, Ali would win. Stanley Kauffman wasn't any kinder saying that Bergen was such a bad actress that it mars her beauty. Kael noted that Bergen showed intelligence and humor in interviews and even though she probably had more of both than most actresses, her acting was a disgrace.

An extremely, embarrassingly awful actress.

[quote]OP, why do you write like you think we’ve never heard of Candace Bergen?

I've never heard of her.

I remember seeing The Wind And The Lion when it came out. I was probably in high school. At a suburban theater. People actually laughed at her performance when I saw it.

Interesting fact: Director John Milius wanted Orson Welles to play newspaper publisher Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane) in the film, but the studio was worried about being sued by RKO. Instead, he used the character of William Randolph Hearst (not played by Welles).

R90, I had to check it out and even in this trailer, she's horrendously bad. I couldn't imagine seeing the entire movie with her. And what kind of an accent is that?

Candy in T.R. Baskin trailer. Terrible acting aside, she's just not a compelling presence.

I thought Candy was just fine as an educated American independent aristocratic lady of the era in Wind and the Lion ( never mind the real character she represented was an elderly male Greek immigrant to the United States ). In any event her accent was more believable than the Scottish brogue of a Berber sheik.

In any event I only watch the film for Captain Jerome's Marine scenes and Brian Keith's career-best Teddy Roosevelt scenes.

[Quote] Terrible acting aside, she's just not a compelling presence.

You're right she's basically eye candy but she came through in The Group, The Adventurers and Rich and Famous

[quote]R91 even in this trailer, she's horrendously bad. I couldn't imagine seeing the entire movie with her.

Faye Dunaway was originally supposed to do it. Bergen wasn’t the first choice.

She personally thinks this is the worst of her films:

Of course, she looks divine in it.

R96 she must have forgotten The Day the Fish Came Out (1967)

and The Magus (1968)

She will always be an unmarried whore of a woman who had sex with reckless abandon. She could not be counted on to be a role model for good, clean morals. Her behavior resulted in a bastard child that probably ended up have 9 toes and an extra nipple.

Also, she has very bad vaginal odor. It’s like a seafood restaurant down there.

R43 Was? What is she now? Also, why would she get into another lavender marriage in her mid fifties, five years after her first husband died?

She was perfectly cast in Sex and the City but does anyone know how she got along with SJP?

She was married to that French director who had a mistress. In an interview, Candy was like, “Oh, I’m fine with it. We’re the best of friends.”

[quote]that French director who had a mistress

Well, that certainly narrows it down.

So funny r105!

Looks like she’s been cast opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the new Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau is Afraid) film. Should be interesting.

What the hell is that “accent” all about? Did she adopt it in modelling school to sound sophisticated? There’s also the matter of Candice’s nose. It look like it’s been surgically altered.

R108, I think that nose is her natural nose.

R97, that is a great interview. I am not sure everyone who has spent their entire life being so beautiful and special has such a humorous, self-deprecating view of themself ? Or is she actually showing showing a good actress's? With convincing fake modesty.

R109, are you the same one who insisted Tony Bennett didn’t wear a toupee?

Candice has a deep voice like her mom, Frances'.

Tracee talks about her mom and experiences. Diana did well.

Her mother was a model, her father was a ventriloquist, yet she became a high functioning star.

Edgar Bergen was a huge star on radio - The top rated show for a while, I believe.

[quote] He and Charlie were seen at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noël Coward, who recommended them for an engagement at the famous Rainbow Room. It was there that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallée's program.

[quote] Their initial appearance (December 17, 1936) was so successful that the following year they were given regular cast roles as part of The Chase and Sanborn Hour.[5] Under various sponsors (and two different networks), they were on the air from May 9, 1937, to July 1, 1956. The popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled many critics, then and now.

Tracer Ellis Ross was very nice to me when I read for her show once. She was so warmly unassuming and down to earth I thought she was one of the writers. (I’d never seen the show so I didn’t recognize her.)

She was NOTHING like what I’ve heard of her mom.

She was stunning. Here she is at 19 with her father @ 19:06

[quote]Her mother was a model

Frances was more than that.

Her nose does look worked-on. She should have just left it alone.

I think she had it thinned on the end when she was young, and it looked okay for a while, R118. But as usual, as one ages, BLEEEECH!

[quote]R119 I think she had it thinned on the end when she was young, and it looked okay for a while,

Well, this is her nose at age 17.

It’s hard to imagine when she’d supposedly have had it done, or why.

Bergen was praised for her looks from childhood on, had movie offers while growing up in L.A., was crowned May Queen in high school… plus she was a nepo baby who stood to gain a healthy inheritance when her father died. Simply put, she was never a struggling artist or someone who needed to improve themselves.

She did write that when she started modeling in college, fashion editors disliked her strong shoulders and arms, and complained that her hairline was too low.

[quote] Bergen was praised for her looks from childhood on, had movie offers while growing up in L.A., was crowned May Queen in high school… plus she was a nepo baby who stood to gain a healthy inheritance when her father died. Simply put, she was never a struggling artist or someone who needed to improve themselves.

Same (more or less) with Jane Fonda, yet she's had a lot of work done on her face and before that, was a workout queen. And before that she was bulemic.

Her nose always looked the same to me and unlike Fonda Bergen doesn't seem obsessed with her appearance. Not aware that she had surgery on her face as an adult.

The contemporary talk during an early season of Murphy Brown was Candy changed Murphy's hairstyle to district from a minor facelift.

[quote]r121 Same (more or less) with Jane Fonda, yet she's had a lot of work done on her face and before that, was a workout queen. And before that she was bulimic.

Yes. But I was responding to the comment “I think Bergen had it thinned on the end when she was young.”

My point being Bergen didn’t need to have anything done to herself when she was young - her road was already mapped out for her, and obviously paved with stars.

R124 Perhaps. It took her a long while to really be considered more than just a pretty face. I was around at the time and she was widely regarded as a bad actress. Kind of a joke. Until she did that comedy part (supporting) as a sort of comeback, and finally got some good reviews.

[quote]R125 It took her a long while to really be considered more than just a pretty face. I was around at the time and she was widely regarded as a bad actress.

That’s very true. But she did work consistently right from the start, led a jet set life, had marriage proposals, owned residences in NYC and Beverly Hills. She didn’t need a nose job to maintain any of that.

R126 I agree, I don't think she had a nose job.

I also think as a kid she wasn't gorgeous - she was more cute. She grew into her looks (I think).

It was a small part, but she was great as Lakey in THE GROUP…I always think about the way she says “heart of hearts”…

But during that period from THE GROUP to STARTING OVER, she mostly made wretched films. I often think it seems like she got some roles only because Julie Christie turned them down.

I could watch her “Better Than Ever” song from STARTING OVER a million times.

from 1966 to 1982 she made 20 films. She worked with Mike Nichols, Stanley Kramer, George Cuckor, Sidney Lumet, Robert Wise, Claude Lelouch, Lina Wertmuller, Alan J. Pakula, Richard Attenborough and Richard Brooks. She made 3 films with Gene Hackman: The Domino Principle, Bite the Bullitt and The Hunting Party

R129, that's a shocking resume from someone who proved with each performance that she had no talent.

^ Same thing can be said about Meryl’s resume……

G, why don’t you go mount a revival of BARNUM or something - - in Wisconsin. We’re never going to see SUNSET BLVD: THE MOVIE.

Me in a shitty play in Montana would still be more entertaining than Meryl “impersonating” one more famous person in a movie. Hell, the only women left she hasn’t played are Tootie Fields, Neil Carter, and J. Edgar Hoover in drag. Although Miranda in Devil Wears Prada bares a strong likeness to him.

When is that Susan Boyle biopic you were pegged to star in going to start shooting, dear Glenn...it is truly the role you were born to play, though they'll probably have to dub your singing...

I think it starts right after your remake of that classic film E.T. with you in the title role, dearest heart. At least you won’t have to spend all that time in the make up chair getting into character. You were born to play an illiterate, disfigured alien!

Get off my thread you ugly old hags!

^She certainly was striking in her youth, wasn’t she? By striking we mean she probably suffered from FAS…..

The spawn!

I think she found her niche playing a regal upper class lady who didn't suffer fools lightly

The nostrils betray her nose job. It’s slight, but it’s there.

[quote] She made 3 films with Gene Hackman: The Domino Principle, Bite the Bullitt and The Hunting Party

Bite the Bullet. Maybe you were thinking of biting Steve McQueen as Bullitt.

Maybe you were thinking of The Sand Pebbles R141

No, I wasn’t.

After finding out Gene Hackman was a womanizer, all I can say is ewwww!

Yes, he screwed Lisa Eichorn during prep for “All Night Long” then had her fired and replaced when the affair ended.

Adorable screwing up her lines on SNL.

"Go back to your double-wide and FRY something!"

r146 that sketch is a classic. Gilda's improv training really came through and she made the sketch twice as funny than if it had gone according to script.

it was a 'stupid' skit in every sense of the word and only Candice's flub helped to make it memorable

73 posts before it was a Trump thread. Usually you get the Trump comment in the 20 post range. You gals are slipping.