Stage, film, TV actress Polly Bergen, 84, dies
Beauty products success earned millions
NEW YORK – Emmy-winning actress and singer Polly Bergen, who in a long career played the terrorized wife in the original “Cape Fear” and the first woman president in “Kisses for My President,” died Saturday at her home in Southbury, Connecticut.
Bergen, 84, had battled emphysema and other ailments in the late 1990s, a result of 50 years of smoking.
A brunette beauty with a warm, sultry singing voice, Bergen was a household name from her 20s onward. She made albums and played leading roles in films, stage musicals and TV dramas. She also hosted her own variety series, was a popular game show panelist and founded a thriving beauty products company that bore her name.
In recent years, she played Felicity Huffman’s mother on “Desperate Housewives” and the past mistress of Tony Soprano’s late father on “The Sopranos.”
Bergen won an Emmy in 1958 portraying the tragic singer Helen Morgan on the famed anthology series “Playhouse 90.” She was nominated for another Emmy in 1989 for best supporting actress in a miniseries or special for “War and Remembrance.”
Bergen was 20 and already an established singer when she starred with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in her first movie, “At War With the Army.” She joined them in two more comedies.
Bergen published the first of her three advice books, “The Polly Bergen Book of Beauty, Fashion and Charm,” in 1962. That led to her own cosmetics company, which earned her millions.
Bergen became a regular in TV movies and miniseries, most importantly in the 1983 epic “The Winds of War” and the 1988 sequel, “War and Remembrance.” She appeared as the troubled wife of high-ranking Navy officer Pug Henry, played by Robert Mitchum.
Mitchum also had the key role in the landmark 1962 suspense film “Cape Fear,” as the sadistic ex-convict who terrorizes a lawyer (Gregory Peck) and his wife (Bergen) and daughter because he blames Peck for sending him to prison. The film was remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese.
In 1964’s “Kisses for My President,” Bergen was cast as the first female U.S. president, with Fred MacMurray as first gentleman. (In the end, the president quits when she gets pregnant.) When Geena Davis portrayed a first woman president in the 2005 TV drama “Commander in Chief,” Bergen was cast as her mother.