From Class Act
You first notice her beauty, which is of the striking variety, the kind that makes heads turn. You expect the public persona: self-assured, intelligent and coy, but away from the cameras, her strong stance softens. With her shoes off and her feet up, Candice Bergen -- Charlie McCarthy's sister, vaudeville ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's daughter, director Louis Malle's widow, Murphy Brown -- becomes a woman on the backside of 55. A mother, a new wife, a career changer. And, perhaps most important, a person content to see herself as still a work in progress.In an extraordinarily busy life, Bergen has it all, or nearly so. After sharing a place on her father's knee with his wooden dummy, she claimed her own fame before turning 20 as a Ford cover-girl model. A film career beckoned, and she held memorable roles in movies including Carnal Knowledge and Starting Over, for which she was nominated for an Oscar. She traveled the world, toying with a second career as a photojournalist on assignment for Life and Esquire. For 10 years beginning in 1988 she played the TV character Murphy Brown, a feisty single-mom news anchor, earning five Emmy Awards and a place in sitcom history.
On the personal side, Bergen has poured all her talents into her role as mother to Chloe, her daughter with Malle, who died of lymphoma in 1995. Today, as Chloe prepares to leave the nest, her mom has begun again to redefine herself. In 2000, she married New York real estate developer Marshall Rose. She launched a talk show on the Oxygen cable network, and this year takes her interviewing skills into the field with Candice Checks It Out. This month she appears in the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama. In one of the movie's more memorable scenes, Reese Witherspoon, who plays a woman engaged to Bergen's son, slugs her -- smack on the kisser.
RD: Have you ever been decked before in a movie?
Bergen: I've been shot, mauled and abused -- but never by a woman.
RD: What's it like to work with the younger generation of film actresses?
Bergen: These women are so on top of it. I think of what a screw-up I was in my 20s. Reese is so professional and what is she? Twenty-six? She's talented and backs it up by really being prepared. It's impressive.
RD: By the time you were 26, you'd done a million things. You were pretty impressive too.
Bergen: I was all over the place, and I think a lot lately about how I would have done it differently if I had been more focused instead of squandering opportunities and wasting time. I've had such a rich and interesting life, and I wouldn't swap that. I just think I shouldn't have been so half-assed about everything.
RD: But you've had such an interesting life, starting with Charlie. Do you have a version of him in your home today?
Bergen: He's in the Smithsonian, but I have collections of Charlie McCarthy spoons and tin cars and toys.
RD: And you think of him fondly, or do you hate his guts?
Bergen: He always was referred to as my brother and was a figure larger than life in my house. Whenever I'm hard on myself, I say, "Not everyone had this situation to grow up in, and it's probably a miracle that you're putting one foot in front of the other."
RD: So it was dealing with him that was so difficult, more than just growing up in the public eye?
Bergen: I don't think being in the public eye is good for a kid in any way, and I think parents should go to great lengths to avoid putting kids in the public eye. It gives you that bogus sense of entitlement. It's similar to when kids are little and have a birthday party. They get all these presents and all this attention and they go nuts and crash and burn and behave like they've been invaded by an alien. It's hard enough to be my age and try and have some perspective on it.
RD: I know you've tried to protect Chloe from that. Tell us about her.
Bergen: She's passionate and funny and has a tremendous social consciousness, a great sense of humor. She's intellectually curious and excessively creative. Just has lots of strings in her bow.
RD: She's 16 now. Have the teen years been difficult?
Bergen: No. Since it's been the two of us, we've been very, very close. Usually girls act out against their mothers, but she went easier on me. I'm still waiting for the shoe to drop, but she's been great.
RD: She'll go to college soon. Will you suffer empty-nest syndrome?
Bergen: Ha! I have it now. I just dropped her off in France and steeled myself, because she's going to be away for six weeks. She's never gone away to sleep-away camp, and neither of us wanted her to go to boarding school. I could tell she was nervous about me taking her to the airport because I cry at anything with her. So I got it out the night before while she was asleep. In the morning, I was completely cool, dry-eyed, and sent her off.
Making It Count
RD: People think of you as someone who has explored so many interests in life. What more would you like to do?Bergen: I'd like to get more actively involved in public service. I'm concerned about the environment, the way it's been dealt with these last months. And living again in New York, I notice New Yorkers have such a high level of social activism. I'd like to do more of that kind of thing.
RD: How do you choose your film roles now?
Bergen: I choose things that can accommodate my life. I turned down a one-hour television show because it was going to be shot in Los Angeles. It's probably something that I'll question later, but either you have a life or you don't. And there's a reason why you have a life, and it's because you make certain priorities. My daughter only has two years left of high school.
RD: What about her career choices? Have you offered any guidance?
Bergen: When she was about seven, she said that when she grew up she wanted to be a flight attendant or a writer. I said, "Honey, here's a pad."
RD: Two years ago you married again. Did you expect that?
Bergen: No. I wasn't even dating. I thought, what was the point, to go out there again in your 50's? But I was incredibly lucky to be introduced to a man who is just shockingly kind and has a tremendous heart.
RD: How has he changed your life?
Bergen: I would say he's civilized me, emotionally. I was a little bit of a savage, not very good at that stuff.
RD: Do you feel lucky?
Bergen: Oh, always. I've always felt lucky.
RD: Tell us about your work on the Oxygen television network.
Bergen: Over the years I'd done different kinds of journalism -- magazine pieces, pieces for The Today Show. So when the opportunity came up to do a talk show, I thought, I can meet all of these interesting people and find out about them. And it was very low-key, which was good, because interviewing someone for an hour is not easy, and I don't have the gift of gab in social situations.
RD: Do you think you're actually a journalist at heart?
Bergen: That's what I really always loved doing. Had I not been born into the environment I was, I would have liked to have been a [full-time] journalist. I certainly wouldn't have lived as well. But I think it would have been an interesting life. I was offered 60 Minutes 25 years ago and idiotically turned it down. But then I wouldn't have gotten to play a journalist on television, and I wouldn't have given that up for anything.
RD: If you were interviewing yourself, what's one question you would ask that would reveal something people don't already know?
Bergen: How have your priorities changed over time? What was having a child to you? What are you afraid of?
RD: That's a good one.
Bergen: I think when we're younger, we're very fearful and camouflage that with all kinds of armor, whether it's sarcasm or anger. I always feel proud of friends because I see how hard they have worked to become better people, how they've managed to slay their demons. There's always that work to be done. You may think you can coast for the rest of your life. You can coast for periods, but then life sort of bites you in the ass.
RD: So, what are you still afraid of?
Bergen: Now I'm just afraid of not having enough time.
RD: In a day?
Bergen: What I think is very common in people in their 50's and over is that we all love life. I see how much we appreciate it, how much we love our kids, our friends, our summers. And I see everybody taking care of themselves because they're starting to feel a wind at the end of the tunnel. Everyone's wanting to make everything count.
A Work in Progress
RD: Do you think aging is harder for you because you're a public figure?Bergen: People have a yardstick to measure us by. They see you in a film from 20 years ago ... we all look at some people now and say, "Oooh, they should have stayed home."
RD: I think women suffer more under that particular scrutiny. Men in show business are allowed to age.
Bergen: Look at Clint [Eastwood]. All these guys are doing love scenes with women 30, 40 years younger, and nobody makes a peep. That's one of the last double standards that I'd like to see go. It's just ridiculous, but I think it's beginning to change.
RD: Louis Malle. Having experienced his death, what do you have to share about going through the grief process and coming out the other side still wanting to savor life?
Bergen: Well, it gives you more of that. I think it stands to reason that when you see someone who's close to you and so dynamic go through a long, difficult illness, you feel like you have to appreciate life -- that it's almost an insult to them if you quibble about things that don't matter.
RD: If you had three wishes, what would they be?
Bergen: Aside from eternal life? It's nice that you narrow it, because if you say, "If I could eat and not gain weight," then somebody else says, "World peace," you feel like the proverbial schmuck.
RD: Aside from eternal life. Something personal.
Bergen: I would wish my daughter the longest, healthiest, most fulfilling life. I hope I'll be around long enough to see a grandchild. I think it's good if you have a goal if you read the obits, which I do. I used to think 85 was good, but now I'm thinking, okay, I'd like to get to a vigorous 90. But by the time we get to be 70, living to 90 will be routine. So, hmmm, I'll go for a vigorous 90 -- or a frail 95.
RD: Okay, tell us one little pleasure you crave.
Bergen: I'd like to eat the way I did 20 years ago. I'm getting beefier while eating less. In six months. I'm like, What happened here?
RD: Is there one thing in particular you wish you could eat without consequence?
Bergen: No. Why think small? I just want to eat anything I want. Be a size eight, fit, not creaky.
RD: In other words, growing old means it's okay to appreciate life.
Bergen: You've gone through enough that you're comfortable with who you are. It doesn't mean you don't stop trying to be better. I have moments all the time when I just can't believe I'm such an abysmal human being, when I can't stand myself. But there has to be some acceptance of who you are, and that you're always a work in progress.