Actress Polly Bergen Dies at 84

Image by getty images
Polly Bergen, who won accolades as a film, television and stage actress as well as a singer, has died.
Bergen, who starred in the 1962 film “Cape Fear, died Saturday at her home in Southbury, Conn., from natural causes, publicist Judy Katz told media outlets. She was 84. Katz said she was surrounded by family and close friends.
Born Nellie Paulina Burgin, Bergen converted to Judaism in 1956 after marrying the Hollywood talent agent Freddie Fields. The couple adopted two children.
In “Cape Fear,” she played the wife of a lawyer (portrayed by Gregory Peck) who is stalked by a psychopath (Robert Mitchum).
She won an Emmy Award in 1957 for Best Single Performance playing the title role of “The Helen Morgan Story,” part of the anthology series “Playhouse 90.” She also performed on Broadway and sang on the radio and in nightclubs.
Later in her career, Bergen received a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 2001 Broadway revival of “Follies.” She also appeared on the popular television dramas “Desperate Housewives” and “The Sopranos.”
Bergen succeeded on the business side: In the mid-1960s, she began selling a line of Polly Bergen Cosmetics that she later sold to Faberge.
She also published three advice books.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn event with Itamar Ben-Gvir cancelled days before Israeli far-right minister’s US trip
-
Culture How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on ‘Shark Tank’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.