Actress Frances Bergen, widow of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and mother of Candice Bergen, died Oct. 2 in Los Angeles after a prolonged illness. She was 84.
Bergen was born Frances Westerman in Birmingham, Ala. At the age of 19, she caught the eye of 39-year old Edgar Bergen while in the audience of his radio program and he asked to meet her. The couple married in Mexico, and Edgar Bergen died in 1978.
The couple moved to New York where she modeled and then moved into acting. Bergen appeared in films including the 1953 “Titanic,” “Made in America,” “The Morning After,” “The Muppets Take Manhattan,” “The Sting II” and “American Gigolo.” On television, she also appeared in “Barnaby Jones,” “Murder She Wrote,” and on an episode of “Murphy Brown” with her daughter.
In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a son Kris and a granddaughter, Chloe Malle.
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Donations may be made to either the American Heart Association or the Arthritis Foundation.
