#Fact1She was, in her words, "a tremendous reader of science fiction".2The day after she appeared as the lead in the TV production of the Helen Morgan story, the headline of the TV review column in the NY Herald Tribune was "Pepsi girl takes up hard liquor".3In 1964, Bergen starred with Fred MacMurray in "Kisses for My President," a film premised, incredibly for the first woman becoming president. It wasn't quite an anthem to feminism, though: "Is America prepared?" the posters asked. "What happens to her poor husband when he becomes the First Lady?". In 2008, Bergen campaigned door-to-door for Hilary Rodham Clinton, when the former first lady ran for president. "She always thought a woman president in real life was long overdue," said her longtime manager, Jan McCormack. When Geena Davis as MacKenzie Allen becomes the first woman American president after she ascends to the job following the death of president Teddy Bridges. portrayed a first woman president in the 2005-2006 ABC television drama series "Commander in Chief." Polly Bergen was cast as Geena Davis' MacKenzie Allen's mother.4Polly Bergen died at her home in Southbury, Connecticut at 84 years of age. Her death was from natural causes. Bergen had a history of emphysema and circulatory problems that she attributed to 50 years of smoking. "I had a choice of quitting smoking or singing another chorus of 'Night and Day,' and I chose to continue smoking and quit singing," she told Charles Osgood on CBS News in 2001. "And it was a decision that I regretted from that day forward." But she worked as a character actor well into her older years, appearing as the mistress of Tony Soprano's father on "The Sopranos" and as the mother of Felicity Huffman's character on "Desperate Housewives." "She was a great broad, as they said in the vernacular of her day, a wonderful actress and a lovely woman," Huffman related. "I will miss her fire, her courage and her irreverence". For a woman born in Tennessee and who grew up in Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere as her father traveled between low-paying construction jobs, Bergen radiated urban sophistication.5Born in Knoxville, Tennessee on July 14, 1930, Nellie Paulina Burgin remembered being wowed by the films of Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin -- especially one where Durbin shot to fame after a producer overheard her singing in her kitchen. "I would stand in my kitchen and sing my life out waiting for someone to show up -- if not today, then tomorrow," Bergin told the Hartford Courant in 2013. At 14, Berben played her first professional gig with her guitar-strumming father on a radio station in Richmond, Indinana. Early in her career, she tried hard to "discard the hillbilly label that had been attached to her," The Times said in 1952, noting her debut at "the plush Maisonette Room in the St. Regis Hotel, New York City, where the ring-side is a veritable sea of mink and ermine." In the 1950s, Bergen also was a regular in Las Vegas, singing standards like "The Party's Over" for as much as $50,000.00 a week to an audience of high rollers and what she called "mob guys." One mobster and his girl-friend befriended her, she later said, and made sure she sent most of her money home to her parents. "There was nobody in the world who knew good from bad better than they did," she explained. At around the same time, Bergen started a lengthy run on the quiz shows, primarily "To Tell the Truth." In her mid 30s, she started experiencing voice problems and for years abandoned singing.6Hard-hit by the financial crisis of 1987, Bergen sold her 4,000-square-foot Park Avenue apartment, appeared in a few television movies, and moved to Montana for a few years. "I just couldn't bear the humiliation of what I was doing," she told the New York Times. "I just can't stand in these lines with 35 actresses who've each got 63 million miles of film, waiting to audition for some idiot who's 12 years old." Bergen later returned to singing, working with a vocal coach to freshen her skills. In 1999, Bergen performed at a Miami Beach benefit performance of Stephen Sondheim's "Company." The audience loved her. "They were like, 'Is she still alive?'" she said. "It felt like I'd never been gone, but I knew I could get better." At 70, Bergen was back on Broadway, nominated for a Tony award in Sondheim's "Follies." Her hit song was "I'm Still Here": Good times and bad times -- I've seen them all. And, my dear: I'm still here......7Pollly Bergen, an outspoken actress who also gained acclaim as a nightclub singer, a cosmetics entrepreneur and a ubiquitous quiz-show panelist, did not start out as an overnight smash. Bergen was 20 and already an established singer when she starred in her first Hollywood feature film -- a Dean Martin-and-Jerry Lewis comedy called "At War With the Army" -- that was released by Paramount Pictures in 1951. Los Angeles Times reviewer Philip K. Scheuer allowed that there might be hope for the attractive but inexperienced newcomer. "Miss Bergen looks like a nice person and her voice is pretty good, but she doesn't know how to face a camera," Scheuer wrote. "Give her time. She's new." She joined Martin and Lewis in two more Paramount film comedies, "That's My Boy" and "The Stooge." In 1953, she made her Broadway debut with Harry Belafonte in the revue "John Murray Anderson's Almanac." From 1956-1961 she became a regular panelist on the popular New York based CBS Mark Goodson - Bill Todman produced television game show "To Tell the Truth" with Bud Collyer, Kitty Carlisle and Tom Poston. In 1958, seven years after her first Hollywood feature film with Martin and Lewis, Bergen won a best-actress EMMY for her compelling CBS' William S. Paley's Television anthology series "Playhouse 90" in her portrayal of Helen Morgan, the troubled torch singer of the 1920s and '30s. 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. Most importantly in the Dan Curtis Productions' ABC Television 1983 seven episodic mini-series "The Winds of War," and the 1988 sequel, Bergen was nominated for another EMMY in 1989 for best supporting actress in a network television mini-series or special for Dan Curtis Productions' ABC Television "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 original 1962 landmark Universal-MCA feature 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.8Rex Reed, film and theater critic for the New York Observer and a close friend of Bergen's for over 50 years, called Bergen a legendary "A-list, New York Oscar party host." In an interview, he recalled watching the Oscar show while sitting on Bergen's Park Avenue apartment's bed between Paul Newman and Lucille Ball.9In the early 1960s, Bergen formed a cosmetics firm that marketed beauty preparations made from "the oil of the turtle." In 1973, Bergen sold the cosmetic company to Fabérge.10Bergen also was an ardent feminist, campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment and women's reproductive rights. She spoke publicly about having had an illegal abortion when she was a 17 year-old band singer -- a procedure that she said prevented her from bearing children for the rest of her life.11Bergen's personal life, over the years, was not as smooth as her career. Her four-year marriage to actor Jerome Courtland ended in an acrimonious divorce in 1955. Her second marriage was to super-agent and producer Freddie Fields -- they divorced in 1975 after 18 years. In 1982 she married entrepreneur Jeff Endervelt. She co-signed his loans and gave him millions to invest from her beauty company profits. She said in a 2001 New York Times interview: "He would come home and say, 'Honey, sign this.' I wouldn't even look at it. Because you trust your husband." The stock market crash of the 1980s wiped out the investments. She divorced him in 1991, and she said he left her with so many debts she had to sell her New York apartment and other belongings to avoid bankruptcy.12Polly Bergen's survivors include daughter P.K. Fields and son Peter Fields, the children she adopted with her second husband; stepdaughter Kathy Fields Lander; and three grandchildren.13The memorial service (though not the funeral service) for Brandon Lee was held at her home.14When not working, she lives quietly amongst her Hollywood pals in the hills of Litchfield County, Connecticut. [October 2006]15In the spring of 2008, she played the role of "Madame Armfeldt" in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" at Baltimore's Center Stage -- to standing ovations. [April 2008]16Guest starring as "Lynette Scavo"'s mother (Felicity Huffman's character) in the season finale of Desperate Housewives (2004). [May 2007]17Joined the cast of Commander in Chief (2005) as the President's mother. [November 2005]18As of March, 2002, Ms. Bergen is playing Fraulein Schneider in the long running Broadway Revival of "Cabaret" at Studio 54 in New York City.19Release of her memoirs, "Polly's Principles". [1974]20Was a Girl Scout.21Ex-stepmother of Kathy Fields.22Mother-in-law of David L. Lander.23Aunt of Wendy Riche.24Grandmother of actress Natalie Lander.25Had to leave the 2007 musical "Camille Claudel" (due) following minor surgery. She was replaced by Joan Copeland.26For 30 years, from 1969 to 1999, the husky-voiced Bergen did a lot of showing up for work without singing a note. Excessive smoking and respiratory problems were the primary causes.27Converted from Southern Baptist (her grandfather was a minister) to Judaism after marrying Hollywood talent agent Freddie Fields, by whom she had one biological child and two adopted children.28Copping an Emmy Award for playing torch singer Helen Morgan on TV in 1957, she subsequently recorded an album of Morgan's popular songs.29Children with Freddie Fields: Pamela Fields and Peter Fields.30Ex-sister-in-law of Shep Fields.31Over the last 40 years, she has undertaken successful business ventures as Polly Bergen Cosmetics, Polly Bergen Jewelry, and Polly Bergen Shoes. She has also been active as part-owner of and pitch person for Oil-of-the-Turtle cosmetics.32Played the first woman president in the movie Kisses for My President (1964) and played the mother of the first woman president on the TV show Commander in Chief (2005)33She began her career at age 14 as a radio performer.34Was nominated for Broadway's 2001 Tony Award as Best Actress (Featured Role - Musical) for a revival of "Follies."