This coolly elegant, poised blonde star of the 1960s and 70s came to prominence playing the lesbian member of "The Group" (1966), her film debut. But Candice Bergen won few critical raves for her subsequent work as a performer, and was often considered stiff on camera. All that changed when she was cast as "Murphy Brown", the curmudgeonly recovering alcoholic and competitive, self-absorbed single mother anchor/reporter of a fictional TV magazine show on the long-running CBS sitcom. Once said not to be able to handle comedy by the Hollywood powers-that-be, she went on to win a record five Emmy Awards for her work and might have received more had she not declined to include her name on the Emmy ballots after 1995.
After her feature debut, Bergen was much in demand as a leading lady and her follow-up, "The Sand Pebbles" (1966), found her cast opposite Steve McQueen. She was Elliot Gould's leading lady in the counter-culture "Getting Straight" (1970) and the white woman willingly living among Native Americans whom Peter Strauss is ordered to "save" in "Solider Blue" (1971). Still, it was rare that Bergen won a meaty role in which she could demonstrate her acting ability. One role which did was as the co-ed romanced by Art Garfunkel in Mike Nichols' "Carnal Knowledge" (1971). Yet, there were many who continued to question Bergen's talent, despite her nuanced performance fraught with both humor and intelligence. She was essentially overshadowed by Ann-Margret who walked off with the lion's share of the praise (including an Oscar nomination).
Bergen has said that she often chose her films during the 70s based on their location--the more exotic the better. During this time, she also developed a secondary career as a respected photographer (whose work appeared in numerous popular magazines) as well as a TV photojournalist. One role that married both her careers was her brief but telling cameo as famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White in Richard Attenborough's epic "Gandhi" (1982). The actress gave one of her best dramatic performances in John Milius' "The Wind and the Lion" (1975), in which she was an American woman kidnapped by a Moroccan sheik (Sean Connery). Although she held her own in the sappy "Oliver's Story" (1978) the sequel to 1970's "Love Story", Bergen still was not recognized as an full-fledged actress. The turnaround in her career came with "Starting Over" (1979). Bergen was brilliant in the poignantly funny role of Burt Reynolds' ex-wife, a woman with the desire to be a singer who simply cannot carry a note. The film demonstrated her full comedic and dramatic range and earned her an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. But surprisingly, offers did not pour in. She teamed with Jacqueline Bisset in "Rich and Famous" (1981), an uneven remake of the 1943 Bette Davis-Miriam Hopkins vehicle "Old Acquaintance", now better recalled as the final film of director George Cukor. After reteaming with Reynolds in "Stick" (1985), Bergen's big screen career basically ended.
Attempting to stretch as an actor, Bergen made her Broadway debut replacing Sigourney Weaver in David Rabe's satire of Hollywood, "Hurlyburly", directed by Mike Nichols. She more than held her own in an ensemble that featured William Hurt and Ron Silver. She also began to work more frequently on the small screen. Although she had appeared with her father, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, on TV and radio as a child, Bergen had only made occasional guest appearances ("Coronet Blue" in 1967; hosting NBC's "Saturday Night Live"). Her TV-movie career began in 1985 with three diverse roles. Bergen portrayed the evil Morgan Le Fay in "Arthur the King" (CBS), the doomed Polish wife of an abusive husband (Jurgen Prochnow) in "Murder: By Reason if Insanity" (also CBS) and the insecure wife who would do anything to revive the career of her fading movie star husband (Steve Forest) in the ABC miniseries "Hollywood Wives". In 1987, she was well-cast as the society debutante-turned escort service owner Sidney Biddle Barrows, the so-called "Mayflower Madam" (CBS). But "Murphy Brown" guaranteed her a place in TV history. Not only did she win five Emmy Awards during her tenure on the show, she made headlines in 1992 when then vice-president Dan Quayle criticized "Murphy Brown" for creating the storyline of Murphy having a baby out of wedlock. Quayle suffered a fair amount of backlash for his remarks and "Murphy Brown" continued to be a highly popular show, right up to its last season in 1998.
Bergen made several television appearances after her run on "Murphy Brown" ended, including "Sex and the City" in 1998 but didn't really re-emerge until appearing in "Miss Congeniality" with Sandra Bullock in 2000. This set the acting ball rolling again and Bergen quickly took roles in several more high profile films. She appeared in the Reese Witherspoon movie "Sweet Home Alabama" (2002). The following year, Bergen joined Gwyneth Paltrow in the comedy "A View from the Top" and was later seen in the ill-advised remake of 1979's cult comedy classic "The In-Laws," with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks (both 2003). In 2005 the actress then triumphantly returned to series television as the high-powered attorney Shirley Schmidt in David E. Kelley's dramedy "Boston Legal," gleefully crossing swords with her former paramour and law partner Denny Crane (William Shatner).