Bum Times: Hollywood and Broadway Star Polly Bergen Dead at 84

Polly Bergen, the popular actress, singer and TV host who was nominated for a 2001 Tony Award for Follies, died on September 20 at her home in Southbury, Conecticut. She was 84.

Bergen appeared on Broadway seven times over the span of her acting career, making her debut as a featured singer in John Murray Anderson’s Almanac in 1953, before appearing in the farce Champagne Complex (1955) and the musical First Impressions (1959).

Later in her career, Bergen returned to the stage in Love Letters in 1990, before making a big splash as Carlotta in the 2001 Roundabout Theater Company revival of Follies, delivering the Stephen Sondheim showstopper “I’m Still Here” with fire and earning a Tony Award nomination. After Follies, Bergen played Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret and headlined the comedy Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.

In Hollywood, Bergen memorably headlined the original Cape Fear thriller in 1962, received a Golden Globe nomination for 1963’s The Caretakers, starred opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in three films (At War with the Army, That’s My Boy and The Stooge) and teamed up with John Waters for Cry-Baby, playing Mrs. Vernon-Williams.

Bergen received an Emmy Award for playing singer Helen Morgan in the 1958 episode of Playhouse 90 titled The Helen Morgan Story. On TV, she also hosted her own variety show, The Polly Bergen Show, received Emmy nominations for the popular ABC miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance and also had more recent guest spots on The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives.

As she prepared for her stage return in Follies, Bergen brushed off talk of a comeback in a 2001 Broadway.com interview: “You know, I’ve been discovered so many times. I just do what I do. This is not an effort to become a star again. I’ve done that already. This is an opportunity to do what I love… What could be better than spending the latter part of your years doing something that gives you joy?”

Bergen was married three times and has two adopted children from second husband Freddie Fields, Pamela Kerry Fields and Peter William Fields.