Candice Bergen certainly has a lot to celebrate on her 78th birthday today (May 9, 2024)! The busy actress has received five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards throughout her career. She is best known for playing the titular character in the sitcom Murphy Brown but has also starred in Boston Legal, Sweet Home Alabama, Book Club and many more. Bergen made history when she became the first female host of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and was the first woman to join the show’s Five-Timers hosting club. She recently appeared in an episode to welcome Emma Stone into the club.
Bergen got a taste of the spotlight on her father’s show The Edgar Bergen Hour when she was just six years old. Before she became a beloved actress, she was a fashion model and appeared on the cover of Vogue. In 1966, she made her on-screen debut in films The Group and The Sand Pebbles.
Everett Collection
She worked steadily in the ’70s and ’80s and eventually landed her own show with Murphy Brown. The show ran for almost 250 episodes, focusing on Brown as an investigative reporter for the FYI news magazine. The show was critically acclaimed for its portrayal of a female reporter tackling important news. The show got a reboot in 2018, which Bergen appeared in, but was quickly canceled, likely due to its focus on politics.
Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Her most recent roles were reprising previous characters in Book Club: The Next Chapter and the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That... She has one film in post-production called Harvest Moon, which IMDb says is about “a young boy, while being in the midst of a pandemic, sees an opportunity to reunite his separated parents.”
The latest ‘Book Club’ film stars Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, and Mary Steenburgen. Find out what else these stars are up to.
In her personal life, she was married to French film director Louis Malle and they had one child together, a daughter named Chloe. Sadly, he died after a battle with cancer on Thanksgiving Day in 1995. She later married New York realtor and philanthropist Marshall Rose in 2000.
Craig Blankenhorn/Max/Everett Collection
Happy birthday, Candice!
Leave a Reply