Star who gave her voice to women's rights: Polly Bergen dies aged 84
Emmy-winning actress Polly Bergen, who passed away at 84, is probably best known for her role in the original Cape Fear, a 1962 thriller.
Polly Bergen
1930-2014
Emmy-winning actress Polly Bergen, who passed away at 84, is probably best known for her role in the original Cape Fear, a 1962 thriller. It starred Robert Mitchum as a vengeful ex-convict terrorising a lawyer and his wife - Gregory Peck and Bergen.
But Bergen also played the first female president in Curtis Bernhardt's 1964 Kisses for My President - a role more in line with her real-life personality. Bergen - an accomplished singer who recorded albums and performed in Broadway musicals - was a dynamic businesswoman and strong women's rights activist. She created and ran a successful cosmetics company that she sold to Faberge in 1973 and she was a staunch political supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"She always thought a woman president in real life was long overdue," said her manager Jan McCormack. "She campaigned vigorously for Hillary when she ran against Obama; she went up to people's doors and rang their bells."
Planned parenthood was a cause close to Bergen's heart. She adopted three children: daughter Pamela Fields and son Peter Fields with her second husband Freddy Fields, and she also adopted and helped raise Fields' biological child, Kathy Lander.
Bergen had recent television cameos in The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives.