Candice Bergen, former model turned actress, is best known for her role as Murphy Brown on the same titled series. While it might be her best known role, it certainly doesn’t define Candice or her career. She is an independent and modern woman, and a resolute feminist with a host of credits to her name and career.

Born in Beverly Hills, California, on May 9, 1946, Candice is the daughter of actress Francis Westerman, and Edgar Bergen, a skilled entertainer and radio ventriloquist with his own show between 1937 and 1956. Candice grew up in the glam and glitz of Hollywood from the get-go. At the age of six she debuted to the public on her father’s radio show. Living a privileged life, Candice attended private schools and finished school abroad. She attended the University of Pennsylvania and studied art history but never graduated, but while in attendance began working as a model for Ford.

Candice’s film debut was in 1966 in The Group, where she starred alongside Joan Hackett and Joanna Pettet. She appeared in subsequent films over the next few years with some of Hollywood’s future leading men, including Jack Nicholson in Carnal Knowledge and Sean Connery in The Wind and The Lion. Though she was acting sporadically, Bergen was finding time to pursue one of her life’s passions discovered in college – photography. She worked as a photographer and photojournalist with some of her work appearing in national magazines including Esquire, Life, and Playboy.

She continued her career without much ado through the 1970s, aside from the honor of being the first-ever female host of Saturday Night Live in 1975. Into the early 1980s she had roles in several films, but it wasn’t until 1988 that she hit the height of her acting career. Starring in the CBS hit series Murphy Brown supplied Candice with a ten-year run during which she won two Golden Globes and five Emmy Awards, but declined any subsequent Emmy nominations. She also spawned a moral and social debate surrounding choosing single motherhood with her Murphy Brown character doing just that. Though Dan Quayle publicly disagreed with the plot, the American public seemed to overlook it as the show continued to be a success until its finale.

Candice married Louis Malle, a director, writer, and producer, in 1980. They had one child together and were married fifteen years, until his death in 1995 from cancer. In 2000, Candice Bergen married Marshall Rose, a real estate developer. Though Candice has appeared in several major motion pictures recently, her Emmy Award-winning career is continuing on the court-drama series Boston Legal.

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