Before her lecture on Saturday evening, Candice Bergen P'08 sat down with The Herald to talk about politics, growing up famous, Murphy Brown and her own Ivy League education. The following is an excerpt from the interview.
Herald: You currently play attorney Shirley Schmidt on the ABC drama "Boston Legal." Why did you decide to take on this role?Bergen: I loved the writing. I watched the show and I thought it was an incredibly weird, quirky, funny and intelligent show and it tackled social issues in a way that was never preachy, but was always intelligent. The man who writes the show, David E. Kelley, is very shrewd and subversive, so he finds a way to get his messages across without alienating an audience so they don't feel like they're being preached to. I love the writing and I love working with a great cast - I love working with James Spader and Bill Shatner.
You've been acting for nearly four decades now. What were your favorite projects?I have particular connection to Murphy Brown, because it was a big part of my life and it went for such a long part of my life, 10 years, and I loved the character of Murphy and I loved playing her.
Does it bother you that people identify you primarily with Murphy Brown?No, if you're going to be married to be a character, I'm thrilled that it's her.
You've also had a chance to work with several brilliant actors over your career, including Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman, Ben Kingsley and Steve McQueen Were there any whom you enjoyed working with in particular?Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Jack Nicholson. In some cases, I was too young to appreciate the opportunity, and was too insecure as an actor. But actually, I love working with James Spader, and Shatner, too. I think they're both wonderful actors to work with and I learn things from them all the time.
You grew up the daughter of radio performer Edgar Bergen and appeared on his show several times. Did that have any influence on your decision to go into show business?Well, maybe a little. In fact, I had the idea of being a photojournalist first, but I got offers to do films. And then when you grow up in Beverly Hills, it's such a company town, it's like growing up in Washington - people are going to assume you're going into the local industry, which is, in my case, entertainment.
Was it difficult growing up in that kind of setting, in a famous household?You don't really know differently and your friends have parents that are celebrities and I think it's difficult later to separate the real from the fictional. But I have a kind of a nostalgia about growing up there because it was a complete fantasy - you go to Walt Disney's house and ride the train in his backyard. I think it's harder to adjust to reality when you're raised in a setting like that.
Is it true that your father's dummy, Charlie McCarthy, actually had a bigger bedroom and more clothes than you did as a child?Well, (laughs), I had the corner bedroom, but he had the bedroom next to mine. And you know, it was nicely furnished with dresser, drawers and clothes.
Tell us about your college years.(laughs) I went to (the University of Pennsylvania) for two years and I was spending a lot of time in New York City and had not decided on a major yet. They felt that I was not being serious about pursuing my education - and they were absolutely correct. They suggested that I find success and happiness in other fields. I was really chastened because when you grow up in Beverly Hills, you get used to people making exceptions for you and bending the rules for you if you have a parent who's famous or whatever, and I respected (Penn) for not making an exception for me. It was kind of a wake-up call, I was (laughs) stunned and couldn't believe it. Years and years later, I got an honorary doctorate (in 1992), so that was very satisfying. (laughs)
So it's Dr. Candice Bergen now?That's right.
Is it true that you couldn't make it to your 8 a.m. classes?(laughs) Yeah. Actually, it was any early class. I had an early two-hour painting class, and we were doing life drawing. (Because I would get there late), the only seat that was available was behind the nude models, so the teacher thought I was always insulting him because I was always turning in drawings of models' asses.
Drawing from your own college experience, do you have any advice for current Brown students?Well, I am always so envious when I come to visit here because I feel that in my generation, there was really so little expected of women, and very little was expected of kids from Los Angeles in those days. And I see how vibrant these kids are and how much they love learning and how much they love teachers and I am so happy that they take such advantage of it. It's such a cliché, but you really want to go back when you're older and I'm just beyond grateful that my daughter gets to go here.I don't think there's anything I can tell kids because they're so much more completely advanced a species than my generation. But I do feel that it doesn't so much matter what you do in terms of a career as long as you do it with authority - I think that's a Philip Roth quote, very much paraphrased. By that I mean, doing it with commitment and confidence and love what you're doing and have a passion for it and I think that's a big difference. I didn't do that for much of my life and I see so many kids doing it (today) and it's wonderful to see.
So you've worked in movies, TV and radio - do you have a favorite medium?Not radio (laughs), although I would love to do a voice-over in an animated film. I like television because it's very fast. I like how your energy stays up, you don't have long periods of waiting where you lose your focus or concentration and there's something great about the speed of television. The hours are quite long, but really, the medium is mostly irrelevant; it's the writing that pulls you in.
A few years ago, you said that Dan Quayle's "family values" speech was "perfectly intelligent." What did you mean by that?Everyone was attacking the body of the speech, but the speech made complete sense. Nobody on Murphy Brown was saying fathers were dispensable; we were mirroring the reality of what was happening then in life and we tackled it in a very responsible way. But when Quayle made the Murphy Brown comparison and had never seen the show ... he showed Murphy as the anti-Christ.
How would you describe your own politics?I would describe them as liberal. This is such an unparalleled point in time for everyone that a lot of people find themselves thinking and believing things they never thought possible. I would describe myself as a loyal Democrat, probably a social Democrat.
What's in the future for you?I have no idea. I just hope it's a long one.
