‘Murphy Brown’ Actress Candice Bergen Is an ‘Eternal Optimist’ at 74 Years Old

For an actress who was known as an icy blond beauty, and who has met everyone from Henry Kissinger to Salvador Dalí — and even double dated with Frank Sinatra — Candice Bergen, at 74, is surprisingly down-to-earth. She’s also terrifically unconcerned about aging. “I just don’t pay any attention to it,” she says “I mean, it is what it is. And I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of in getting older.”

Candice’s glamorous days of dining with Grace Kelly and Monaco’s Prince Rainier may be behind her, but she has no regrets about her current life. She recently became a first-time grandmother, is costarring in the Steven Soderbergh–directed film Let Them All Talk with Meryl Streep and Dianne Wiest, and is selling her hand-designed merchandise online. “I would like to embrace being 74,” she says. “I mean, my hair is white…I have a wattle.”

Any resentment she once felt about people not seeing beyond her beauty has been resolved. “Candice is an eternal optimist,” an insider tells Closer. “And her confidence has definitely increased with age. She’s learned not to be affected by fame and is comfortable with who she is.”

She wasn’t always so sanguine. When she started out, acting in such films as The Group and The Sand Pebbles, Candice was conflicted about her beauty. “Doctors used to come up to me and say could they take a cast of my nose,” she recalls. She bristled at not being taken seriously: “That’s all you are to people is what you look like.”

But as she strove to establish her own identity, she found solace in photography and writing, which she still pursues. And her acting success continued with her Oscar-nominated role in Starting Over and, of course, with Murphy Brown, which she called “the perfect character… she was appealing and annoying!”

FAMILY MATTERS

More than career or fame, however, family has been important to Candice, especially after she married her first husband, director Louis Malle, and had their daughter, Chloe. “The birth of my daughter was the greatest event in my life,” she says. And now with “the dumpling,” as she calls 6-month- old grandson Artie, she couldn’t be happier. He’s “the best arrival of joy in one’s life,” she raves.

Candice’s life continues to be very full. In addition to promoting Let Them All Talk, streaming now on HBO Max, she’s been spending time watching The West Wing and eating vegetarian meals with her second husband, real estate developer Marshall Rose. She’s so relaxed, her daughter Chloe notes, Candice “has been strolling through Central Park with [her dog] Bruce in her pajamas and the coat she got on Amazon, her hair sticking up.”

Candice may be living a less glittery life, but she shows no signs of slowing down. She even has another new film, with Dustin Hoffman, in the works. She also hopes to set an example by continuing to fully embrace this time in her life. “It’s important for younger women to know that it’s not over until it’s over,” she says, adding that at any age, “Your life can be infinitely rich and engaging and sexy.”

— Lisa Chambers, with reporting by Natalie Posner