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Candice Bergen biography

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Candice Bergen starred on the sitcom Murphy Brown in the title role as a smart, independent anchorwoman. She won five Emmy’s during the show’s 10-year run.

Synopsis

Candice Bergen was born on May 9, 1946, in Beverly Hills, California. She started out in modeling, but began acting in 1966. She received an Oscar nomination for her role in the 1982 film Gandhi. She’s best known for her title role on the sitcom Murphy Brown. She won five Emmy’s for the show, which ran for 10 seasons. She co-starred with William Shatner on ABC’s Boston Legal starting in 2005.

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Actress. Born May 9, 1946, in Beverly Hills, California. The daughter of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and model Frances Westerman Bergen, Candice started her career as part of her father's act alongside his puppets Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. She began modeling as a teenager, and graduated into acting with the 1966 film The Group.

Bergen had critical successes with Carnal Knowledge (1971); Starting Over(1979), for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award; and Gandhi (1982). In 1988 she found her niche in the politically-charged sitcom Murphy Brown (1988-1998), and launched the role for which she would become most famous. Bergen as Murphy, the independent, sarcastic, liberal anchorwoman, earned eight Emmy nominations, and won five times (in 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, and 1995).

The show and its title character became nationally infamous in 1992, when Vice President Dan Quayle attacked the single mother TV character for being a poor role model. Her portrayal of Murphy as a hard-hitting journalist was so convincing that after Murphy Brown ended, Bergen was considered by the real-life TV news show 60 Minutes for a position as a correspondent. It might not have been a bad fit, as she is an accomplished photojournalist whose work has appeared in magazines such as Life and Playboy. Bergen published her memoir, Knock Wood, in 1984.

In 2000, Bergen began hosting her own talk show, Exhale with Candice Bergen, on Oxygen, the women's cable network founded by Oprah Winfrey, among others. It was later cancelled, but she didn??t stay off the air for long. Bergen returned to television on the ABC comedy Boston Legal starring opposite William Shatner and James Spader in 2005. Playing a high-powered attorney has suited her well, she earned an Emmy Award nomination for her work on the series in 2006.

Bergen's brother is Kris Bergen, a film and TV editor. She was married to the French filmmaker Louis Malle from 1980 to 1995, when he died of cancer at the age of 63. Their daughter Chloe was born in 1985. In June 2000, Bergen married her longtime boyfriend, New York real estate executive and philanthropist Marshall Rose.

© 2012 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.

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      TV Moms: 1980s

      In the 1980s, TV moms began juggling family life with professional careers. Phylicia Rashad played lawyer and mom to a big family on The Cosby Show, and Candace Bergen portrayed a TV news anchor who has an unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock. Judith Light played a busy, single advertising executive on Who's the Boss, and even hired a male housekeeper—who happened to be a single dad. Joanna Kerns played the much-loved mom on Growing Pains, whose husband worked from home so she could go back to working as a reporter. This bending of gender roles reflected more modern family structures, and the new choices that women faced.

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      TV Moms: 1980s 11 people in this group

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      TV Moms: 1980s

      In the 1980s, TV moms began juggling family life with professional careers. Phylicia Rashad played lawyer and mom to a big family on The Cosby Show, and Candace Bergen portrayed a TV news anchor who has an unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock. Judith Light played a busy, single advertising executive on Who's the Boss, and even hired a male housekeeper—who happened to be a single dad. Joanna Kerns played the much-loved mom on Growing Pains, whose husband worked from home so she could go back to working as a reporter. This bending of gender roles reflected more modern family structures, and the new choices that women faced.

      View group

      TV Moms: 1980s 11 people in this group

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