Photo by Andrew Eccles
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No More Tears
By Jim Jerome, July & August 2005
Her husband died, her mom got sick, and daughter Chloe left the nest. Now remarried and back on TV, Candice Bergen views life as a party she'd like to keep going until she's 90. No, make that 95
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Like all moms, Candice Bergen dreaded the day her only child, daughter
Chloe, would grow up and go off to college. Unlike most moms, though, Bergen
began worrying about the empty nest rather early. "I literally started
grieving for Chloe's going to college in the hospital, the day she was
born," she says.
That's no setup for one of Bergen's sly signature punch lines. Her
ferocious devotion to Chloe, now 19, particularly after the death of her first
husband (and Chloe's father), Louis Malle, in 1995, nearly consumed her.
For years, she says, she battled "raging insomnia" and bouts of
anxiety. As the day drew near for Chloe to leave for college, Bergen—she
with the cool-as-a-cucumber image—turned into a wreck. "I started
getting very teary and depressed about anything that revolved around
Chloe," she says. "I'd tell myself, I'm not going to make
this into a personal tragedy; I can do this." Or could she? "Then
I'd think, what kind of medication can I take? I don't want to
humiliate her and be sobbing in the quad."
Adding to Bergen's worries, her mother, Frances, 82, was gravely ill in
her L.A. home, suffering from emphysema and other ailments. Bergen was so
preoccupied with her dual "sandwich generation" roles as caregiving
mother and daughter that when überproducer David E. Kelley offered her a
custom-created role last year in Boston Legal, Bergen passed: "I
didn't want to be away from Chloe if I didn't have to be."
But saying no didn't bring peace. "I got so depressed," she
says. "It was a miracle that I would get offered a part written like this
with great actors like William Shatner and James Spader. I could feel the life
oozing out of my body." Fortunately, Kelley (L.A. Law, Chicago
Hope, Ally McBeal, and The Practice, from which Legal
was spun off) persisted. He sent Bergen the script that introduced her
character, senior partner Shirley Schmidt, in the 12th episode, which aired in
January. "I was swooning," she recalls. "The writing was
thrilling and exhilarating, the characters so original and surprising. A
perfect fit."
Bergen eventually said yes to Kelley. She also survived the campus drop-off
without oxygen. ("Not a tear! I think Chloe was a little insulted.")
And this June marks the fifth anniversary of her marriage to her second
husband, New York real estate magnate and philanthropist Marshall Rose. Best of
all, she reports, "Chloe is incredibly happy and finally living her
dream."
That her current state of happiness was so hard won seems odd, given her
fairy-tale start. Her father, Edgar Bergen, who died in 1978, parlayed a
25-cent investment in a book on ventriloquism into a wildly popular career in
vaudeville, radio, and early TV with his wisecracking, pine-headed sidekick,
Charlie McCarthy. Bergen grew up an only child (with due respect to her
head-swiveling wooden sibling) until brother Kris was born when she was 15. As
a kid, she romped among Hollywood royals, as Edgar and Frances, a one-time
model, lavishly entertained such friends as the Ronald Reagans and Jimmy
Stewarts at their Spanish-style Bel Air mansion, Bella Vista. It was, Bergen
has said, an "enchanted, almost fabled" time.
But she rebelliously veered off the path that seemed preordained by her
roots and exquisite looks. "My parents didn't really have any academic
expectations for me," she says. "In those days people didn't for
women, or at least not in Hollywood." In 1963 Bergen opted for Ivy over
Hollywood and Vine, studying art history and photojournalism at the University
of Pennsylvania. She also did campus theater and moonlighted as a Ford model in
New York. Torn between academia and acting, she left Penn in 1966, moved to New
York, and began her screen career in Sidney Lumet's 1966 The Group.
Bergen straddled parallel universes as an actress and a photographer for
more than a decade. She racked up uneven movie credits (The Sand
Pebbles, Carnal Knowledge, The Wind and the Lion) but used
her access and name to score photojournalistic scoops (Robert Kennedy Jr., Paul
Newman, Jane Goodall, Mahatma Gandhi, Haile Selassie) for top magazines. If she
took critical fire for her work in front of the camera ("[Her] only flair
is in her nostrils," film critic Pauline Kael once wrote), Bergen, whose
hero was legendary Life photographer Margaret Bourke-White, showed drive and
self-assurance behind the camera. Her own best "get": Charlie
Chaplin, whose expatriate mountainside retreat in Switzerland she visited in
1972. "To get the cover of Life with Chaplin was just an
out-of-body experience," she recalls. "Oddly, I was pulled to
journalism and so seduced by it."
Bergen's gift for comedy was finally recognized in 1979's
Starting Over with Burt Reynolds—a performance that earned her an
Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. That same year, long
frustrated in her search for Mr. Right, she also met French filmmaker Louis
Malle at a Fourth of July party in Connecticut. They fell madly in love and
married in 1980. Bergen was 33; Malle, a critically revered auteur (Pretty
Baby, Atlantic City, My Dinner With André, Au
Revoir les Enfants), was 47 and had two children. Their match made in
heaven floated on a heady jet stream between Bergen's Beverly Hills and
Manhattan homes and Malle's Paris penthouse and his estate in southwestern
France.
While Bergen once indulged her wanderlust, midlife has
redefined her core needs: 'What I look for primarily is comfort, the
familiar, the secure,' she says.
Their life together got even sweeter in 1985, when, at 39, Bergen became a
mother. "I was just exhilarated beyond belief," she recalls. Two
years later she morphed into TV's unsinkable Murphy Brown, the
career-defining role that won her five Emmys during the show's 10-year run,
the most Emmys ever won by an actor for the same role in a single series.
For a decade Bergen—as wife, mother, prime-time icon—had it all.
But in February 1995 her life was shattered when Malle was diagnosed with
deadly T-cell lymphoma. The illness left him partially paralyzed and unable to
speak. "Seeing someone so compromised and emotionally suffering so
much—you really feel your heart physically breaking," says Bergen.
"It's a very intense experience that a mother should hope not to have
with her daughter. But Chloe and I helped each other through it." Though
tough, says Murphy creator and close friend Diane English,
"Candice, unlike Murphy Brown, very easily shows her emotions. She is a
very, very vulnerable woman."
Malle died at their L.A. home on Thanksgiving Day 1995. Bergen is still
haunted by the horrifying velocity of his illness. "I remember Louis
wondering, how many movies can I make in the time that's left to me? And he
didn't know that he had very little time left. Getting older is obviously a
major kick in the ass. You realize it's sort of a last chance at getting
your own act together and being as engaged as possible at all times."
Bergen pulled Chloe in tight as their healing began. The pair traveled the
world—from Moscow to Marrakesh to Jerusalem—on school holidays. The
trips were Bergen's way of "trying to replace—not that I was
qualified—the intellectual stimulation Louis would have given
Chloe." When her daughter was 11, Bergen recalls, "We were in St.
Petersburg and Chloe was reading Anna Karenina. I probably overdid
it." Says English: "Candice and Chloe worship each other. It was the
two of them against the world."
And Bergen bravely battled her demons. As Chloe, whom her mother unabashedly
calls "my best friend, by far," "the love of my life," and
"a supreme life enhancer," prepared for college, the dread of
separation only intensified. The famously cool actress struggled with chronic
insomnia and anxiety, neither of which was helped by her "raging
menopause." She saw sleep specialists and tried prescription drugs.
"Our lives were so upended for a year," she says. "It was a very
long time of real anguish. I knew that Chloe should know that she was going to
have her life back."
Bergen started reclaiming her own life in 1998, the year that Murphy
Brown ended. That's when she met real estate mogul Marshall Rose, whose
wife of 31 years, Jill, had died of cancer in 1996. Rose had called a mutual
friend, 60 Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt, and asked, first, if
he knew Bergen and, second, if he might fix him up. Hewitt responded by
inviting Bergen to a small dinner party. And by the way, he told Bergen,
"a guy's going to pick you up and escort you." She got a bit
defensive, Hewitt recalls, "and said, 'Who?' I said,
'You've got to trust me.' She said, 'Why?' Candy was not
looking for a husband, that's for sure."
By the next morning Bergen was phoning to say, "I owe you big
time." The couple were married in June 2000 at Rose's Fifth Avenue
apartment. "It didn't surprise me that Candice married again as much
as it surprised her," says English. "She was resigned to the fact
that she got lucky the first time and she wasn't going to get lucky
again."
A man whom Bergen describes as "playful, immensely kind and funny, and
extremely generous with his time and expertise with people," Rose, who is
chair of his Georgetown Partners development firm, has served twice as chair of
the New York Public Library and sat on the boards of the Lincoln Center and a
number of hospitals. He has two grown children, Wendi and Andrew. "I know
how lucky I am to be with a man of his caliber," Bergen says. And Chloe,
adds Hewitt, "has taken to Marshall magnificently. It's all one big,
happy family."
As she reflects on the sometimes unexpected paths her life has taken, Bergen
is eating lunch in a penthouse duplex not far from the Fifth Avenue apartment
she shares with Rose. She bought this place, with its double-height living room
windows and breathtaking vista across Central Park, some 30 years ago and uses
it now mostly for meetings. Though the décor is soothing, Bergen's
personal treasures reflect a restless questing from another time: a trunk from
Africa, wall hangings from Hong Kong and India, ancestral portraits from Paris,
a Buddha from the Far East. "This is my shrine to my other life," she
says. "It's just the best place. Nothing has changed."
But on a deeper level everything has changed. While she once indulged her
wanderlust, midlife has redefined her core needs: "What I look for
primarily is comfort, the familiar, the secure," she says. "I
didn't used to at all, but I do now. I actually cherish it now." One
of her favorite ways to spend time now with Rose is simply to "stay home
and burrow in."
Keeping healthy is another priority for Bergen, having witnessed the
"severely compromised" health of loved ones. Her goal for turning 60
next May is to be in shape: lose a few pounds, loosen up with yoga and Pilates,
heft hand weights "for calcium and bone density," and do 30 minutes
daily on her stair climber. ("If I do it in the morning, I feel less
sluggish.")
She needs plenty of energy to power her resurgent career. Playing Shirley
Schmidt, she strides through her Boston Legal law firm unleashing her
venomous wit on scheming, pompous, incompetent colleagues. Sound familiar?
"Shirley could go toe to toe with Murphy Brown, who was so in-your-face
and fabulous," says Bergen. "They're both strong and fearless
women, tops in their profession. They take no prisoners." David Kelley
feels the same way about Bergen. "Class and dignity emanate from
Candice," he says.
But with that sugar comes some spice, according to costar William Shatner.
"Candice uses a few curse words and some really good epithets," he
says. "I could say the same things and be investigated for sexual
harassment. But she does it and it just comes across as an elegant lady
cursing." (Boston Legal, now on hiatus, is expected to resume in
the fall.)
In addition to Boston Legal, Bergen did three guest episodes as a
judge on Law & Order: Trial by Jury this spring. And she is working
on two long-deferred photo books: a collection of vintage Charlie McCarthy
photos ("Charlie and me sitting in our Dr. Denton's by the Christmas
tree") and portraits from her photojournalism assignments. "When am I
going to do these if not now?" she asks. "We have to never forget
that every day is a gift."
That urgency is powerfully reinforced during her trips to L.A. to shoot her
series and visit her mom, who is bedridden and in the daily care of
Bergen's brother, Kris, now 43, a film and video editor. "My
daughter," says Bergen, "is just beginning her life, and my mother is
getting very close to the end of hers. It's been very poignant. It brings
up a complicated set of emotions—seeing a parent at such an extremely
vulnerable and needy point."
Bergen draws comfort from friends who, like her, are first-wave Boomers
simultaneously raising kids and tending to elderly parents. "All of my
contemporaries are going through this," she says. "We look at each
other and think, I don't want to have my kids going through this with me.
How are we going to deal with this? It's very anchoring, but it's a
dilemma."
Her pain is eased by observing the strong bond between Chloe and Frances.
"They had a very eccentric relationship," she says. "My mother
was almost like Auntie Mame with Chloe, and she was never Auntie Mame with me.
Chloe would spend the night with my mother and they'd be up till 11 or 12
doing the mambo, putting on cha-cha records, or watching old movies." To
this day, Bergen says, "my daughter is great with her. Chloe gave my mom
new life. They're very close and have a great time together."
Back on the East Coast, Chloe keeps Mom updated on her college life with
e-mails and out-of-breath cell phone "mini-chats" from all over
campus. When Chloe comes home, Bergen loves to wander the city streets with
her, the two united by "the eccentric Bergen family sense of humor,"
such as mimicking the unusual gaits of strangers. "Chloe is my partner in
weirdness, the department of silly walks," Bergen says. "My husband
is often fairly embarrassed by it." But she makes no apologies.
"People sometimes get crazier as they get older. I can just be weird
whenever I want, and there's the freedom of not caring what people
think."
Indeed, freed from the fears and anxieties that pervaded her decade of
living sleeplessly, Bergen is now hoping for many years of health and
happiness. "A decade ago," she says, "I figured making it to 85
would be great. A vital 85. Then I thought, screw that. I'm going to live
to 90. A vital 90." Now, on the brink of 60, she concludes, "No, it
still sucks. Living to 85's not okay; living to 90's not okay. Nobody
wants to leave the party."
Jim Jerome is a Manhattan-based freelancer who was a staff writer for
People magazine for 15 years.
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