Candice Bergen has made rare comments about her time as a model during her teenage years and twenties. The 80-year-old actress appeared on an episode of The Run-Through with Vogue podcast, co-hosted by her daughter Chloe Malle, who is Vogue's head of editorial content. Bergen stated that modeling simply was not for her.
Modeling in Her Teens
"I remember modeling when I was 15 or 16," shared Bergen, who graced the covers of Vogue and Mademoiselle magazines. Modeling seemed to run in her family, as her mother, Frances Bergen (née Westerman), had been a Powers model known professionally as Frances Westcott. However, that heritage was not enough to fuel her ambition on the catwalk.
"I started to earn my own money and putting on what seemed like grownup clothes, women's suits and stockings and thinking, 'Oh, what a lot of trouble,'" she added. Her first Vogue cover was in 1967, and the Beverly Hills native also became the face of Chanel No. 5 perfume in the 1960s.
A Fading Interest
The Murphy Brown actress said being a mannequin "was interesting the first few times and then it faded." She subsequently transitioned to acting, landing her first role in the 1966 film The Group.
Daughter's Rise at Vogue
Bergen recently opened up about Malle's appointment as Anna Wintour's successor at Vogue. Wintour, who served as editor-in-chief of American Vogue for 37 years, named Malle as her successor in September 2025. During AARP's Movies for Grownups event, Bergen remarked that her daughter's new role "is no small thing."
"She's been at Vogue for 14 years, so she didn't just talk her way into it," the actress continued. "She worked up to it." Bergen also expressed happiness that Malle, 40, is a mother to two children. "I think she's wonderful with her kids, and she's very lucky because she chose a great husband [Graham Albert], who is a fantastic father."
Malle, whose father is the late French film director Louis Malle, began working at Vogue in 2011. She started as a social editor, then became a contributing editor, and later the editor for Vogue.com. Interestingly, Bergen once played Enid Frick, the fictional editor-in-chief of Vogue, on Sex and the City and its sequel And Just Like That.
