A Fine Romance

February 16, 2015
With her trademark wit, Bergen (Knock Wood) leads readers through the highs and lows of her professional and personal life in this entertaining and poignant memoir chock-full of Hollywood cameos. After a disastrous first date unexpectedly leads to love, Bergen marries French director Louis Malle in 1980 and the pair travel the world as their respective films take them from India to France. Always ambivalent about motherhood, Bergen decides to have a child at the relatively late age of 39. Their daughter, Chloe, is born in 1985—an event that changes the dynamic of Bergen’s relationship with Malle, as he’s unable to be wholly present for Chloe’s upbringing due to filming commitments. The desire for a steady schedule is one perk that draws Bergen to the groundbreaking CBS comedy series Murphy Brown. Her descriptions of the rewards and challenges that came with playing the titular tough-talking “Mike Wallace in a skirt,” her first foray into both TV and real comedy, are among the book’s strongest sections. Dealt a crushing blow when Malle was diagnosed with a rare and fatal neurological disease and died in 1995, Bergen recounts finding her footing again both in her career—she spent several seasons on the series Boston Legal—and in her love life, marrying New York real estate developer Marshall Rose in 2000. Never afraid to poke fun at herself or celebrity culture, Bergen is as fresh, funny, and biting as Murphy Brown was nearly 30 years ago.

June 29, 2015
Actress Bergen performs a beautifully entertaining and down-to-earth reading of her memoir, which is as heartwarming and stirring as her performance. There is tenderness in her voice as she reads the first letter that her late husband, Louis Malle, wrote to her, and wonderment when she recounts traveling with him. She speaks with candor about widowhood, motherhood, remarriage, and aging in a society driven by appearance, all of which are conveyed effectively by Bergen’s signature gravelly voice. Most endearing of all is Bergen’s delightful sense of humor—dry and self-deprecating—sparing herself little dignity as she describes her fears during childbirth, her passion for food, and her “skewed sense of moral superiority to women who are intensely self-disciplined when it comes to food.” She sounds on the verge of laughter as she recounts the pranks on the set of the television show Murphy Brown. Bergen’s memoir is a charming blend of joy, sentimentality, and unabashed honesty that is augmented by Bergen’s skillful and heartfelt performance. A Simon & Schuster hardcover.