Groups of people hover around the Murphy Brown set -- cast, crew, writers, producers, makeup artists -- each with opinions on everything from camera angles to punch lines. In the center of it all is the show’s star, Candice Bergen, utterly calm even though this is her tenth and last season, and the whole world will be watching to see if Brown overcomes a bout with breast cancer with her trademark sass and stoicism intact.
She waits for a break, then makes a beeline to the quiet corner where her favorite critic and confidante, her 12-year-old daughter, Chloe, is observing the action.
"I’ve seen Chloe on the set more and more this season," says Marc Flanagan, the show’s new executive producer. "Candice and Chloe are great together -- extremely close."
Sadly, since November 1995, when Louis Malle died at age 63, Bergen and Chloe have been alone. After 15 years of marriage, Bergen, now 51, was suddenly a widow, unsure of how she would go on and how she would raise her child single-handedly.
"Louis was the love of my life," Bergen told Larry King in an interview last September. The feeling was mutual: Malle once admitted, "With Candice, I surrendered completely for the first time in my life."
Friends describe their relationship as a fairy tale. They met at a Fourth of July picnic in Connecticut in 1979, when she was 33 and he was 47. He had been married briefly before and had fathered two children out of wedlock. Bergen, who had resigned herself to the possibility that she might never marry, was bowled over by the famous French director. They were married in September 1980 at Malle’s retreat in southwestern France.
Following their wedding, Malle continued to spend most of his time in France making movies while Bergen worked in Hollywood. He commuted to Los Angeles frequently to spend time with her, and in 1985, Chloe was born. During the summers, all three lived in the beautiful French countryside. "This period of our lives was very rich," Bergen has said. "But I know enough to know things can’t go on forever."
In 1995, Malle was diagnosed with lymphoma and moved to their Beverly Hills home. Shooting Murphy Brown revolved around Bergen’s schedule -- she was on the set at 7 a.m. and out by noon. Cast and crew were supportive and even planned an episode without Brown, should Bergen need to take a leave of absence.
Malle was ill for ten months, and towards the end of his life, he couldn’t walk or speak. It was an experience, Bergen has acknowledged, that many people have shared. "What it does from the first moment is connects you immediately to millions of people who are going through this horrible, helpless position of watching someone they love die in a very cruel way," she has said.
Friends mentioned two things that kept Bergen sane during the crisis: Murphy Brown and her daughter. "In many ways the show was a chance for her to play a little, to not have that responsibility on her head," Murphy Brown’s former executive producer, Michael Saltzman, has said.
Chloe, though only ten at the time, coped as bravely as any grown-up. In the end, Bergen, Chloe, Malle’s 24-year-old son, Cuote, and Malle’s younger brother and producing partner, Vincent, were at the director’s bedside. And at his memorial service in France, Chloe was allowed to give a moving tribute to her beloved "Poppy."
That’s why, after this season, she will finally "pack up the tent" and end her TV series for good. During the past few years, she often flirted with the idea. This time she means business. "I know I’ve said it before, but this is it," she announced last spring. "This has been a great ride. I will miss everything about it."
Which is not to say she’ll abandon acting entirely. "I’m not quitting the business, but certainly I’ll pull back," she has said. "It would be a while before I could [do another series]. I’d like to see if there are some comedy parts in films that I could do."
Though Bergen made more than 20 movies before her stint as Murphy Brown, film fame always eluded her. She’s had only a couple of hits -- Carnal Knowledge and Rich and Famous -- and has admitted that her cinematic career has been "hardly distinguished." She hopes to change that: She would like to team up with Bette Midler on a big-screen comedy. "It would be wonderful -- if the location would work out with my daughter," she has said, "That is what my work will now hinge around."
Perhaps Bergen’s fierce devotion to motherhood is a result of the fact that her own parents often unintentionally made her take a backseat to a puppet. Her father Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy was an icon, and from the day Bergen was born, she was thrust into the public eye as his "little sister."
Today, mindful of her own stressful experiences, Bergen shields Chloe. "I don’t take her anywhere there might be press, and I have discouraged her from being an actress," she has said.
Bergen has been outspoken about her dislike of the tabloid press (ironically, her own TV character will stop at nothing to get a story). "What I find really objectionable is the press as terrorists," she told Larry King in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. "I think there is a limit. There should be decency and respect."
Friends say that Bergen, aware of the personal and professional risks she faces, will choose her next move very carefully, looking for good work that will allow here to remain close to her daughter. "Candice is not one of those people who is easily seduced by Hollywood," says Elliot Kastner, a longtime friend and producer of her 1974 movie 11 Harrowhouse. "She won’t be drawn to something just based on what’s offered."
"I think she is looking forward to a break and spending time with Chloe," Marc Flanagan, Murphy Brown’s executive producer, adds. "That’s where her heart is."
"She is an extraordinary individual," says playwright John Guare, who wrote the screenplay for Malle’s 1980 Atlantic City. "She is resilient, and she has an amazing inner strength that will carry her through, even if it is on her own."
Which is how Bergen seems to be choosing to live her life. It’s been two years since Malle’s death, and she has been adamant about her decision not to date.
"It’s just not a priority, frankly, and I wasn’t good at it when I was younger," she has said. "I can only imagine what it would be like now."
She will make any choices with one thing in mind: "I try to live life for Louis," she has said. "He’s not here with us, and so I’m just trying to do as much with Chloe as I can and live as full a life as we can. The future’s not daunting. I think you carry people around inside you, and they inspire you along the way."
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