page_title: Polly Bergen
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Polly Bergen / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Polly Bergen and Angela Lansbury at the 1989 Emmy Awards.
context_page_description: Polly Bergen was an American actress, singer, television host, writer and entrepreneur.
  She won an Emmy Award in 1958 for her performance as Helen Morgan in The Helen Morgan Story. For her stage work, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Carlotta Campion in Follies in 2001. Her film work included Cape Fear and The Caretakers, for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She hosted her own weekly variety show for one season, was a regular panelist on the TV game show To Tell The Truth and later in life had recurring roles in The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives. She wrote three books on beauty, fashion and charm.
context_section_description: Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear (1962) opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. She had roles as the romantic interest in three Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy films in the early 1950s: At War with the Army, That's My Boy and The Stooge. She was featured in a number of Westerns during the 1950s, including Warpath, Arena and Escape from Fort Bravo. She starred in the horse racing comedy Fast Company, as the first female commander-in-chief in Kisses for My President, and as the wife of James Garner in the romantic comedy Move Over, Darling, also starring Doris Day. Bergen's later roles included Mrs. Vernon-Williams in Cry-Baby, a John Waters film.
  Bergen received an Emmy Award for her portrayal of singer Helen Morgan in the episode The Helen Morgan Story of the 1950s television series Playhouse 90. Signed to Columbia Records, she enjoyed a successful recording career during this era, as well. In the 1950s, she was known as "The Pepsi Cola Girl", having done a series of commercials for this product.
  She was a regular panelist on the game show To Tell the Truth during its original run. She was an occasional panelist and once a mystery guest on What's My Line?. She appeared on the interview program Here's Hollywood. She earned two Emmy Award nominations for her role as Rhoda Henry, wife of Captain "Pug" Henry (played by Mitchum), in two miniseries: The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance.
  She starred in a 2001 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies at the Belasco Theater and received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical. In 2003, she starred at the same theatre in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks opposite Mark Hamill in a role she took over from Rue McClanahan.
  Bergen played Fran Felstein on HBO's The Sopranos, the former mistress of Johnny Soprano and John F. Kennedy. From 2007 to 2011, Bergen had a guest role in Desperate Housewives as Stella Wingfield, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination.
  She was a semi-regular cast member of Commander-in-Chief (2006) as the mother of Mackenzie Allen, the fictional president of the United States, played by Geena Davis. Bergen had once played the first female president of the United States in the movie Kisses for My President (1964). Another late appearance came in the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation Candles on Bay Street (2006), in which she played the assistant to a husband-and-wife team of veterinarians.
  In 1965, Bergen created the Polly Bergen Company cosmetics line also known as Oil of the Turtle. She also created lines of jewelry and shoe brands, and wrote three books on beauty.
caption: Bergen at the 1989 Emmy Awards
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0.1 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:21 22:28:04", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "314", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3811", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "162", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "252"}