The Ups And Downs Of Candice Bergen's Relationship History

Candice Bergen started life in a show business family, born to famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and model Frances Bergen. Bergen grew up in the shadow of her father's beloved dummy, Charlie McCarthy. She often felt like an afterthought to him, but she stood out in the social circles that her parents' fame helped her access. She rubbed elbows at Truman Capote's infamous Black and White Ball, worked as a model, and even dabbled in photojournalism before settling into an acting career. All that time, Bergen dated, usually privately, but more often than not with famous names, or at minimum those connected to Hollywood.

An early relationship included fellow famous offspring Terry Melcher, the music producer son of Doris Day. She also went on dates with public figures like Donald Trump and Henry Kissinger, though neither seemed to leave much of an impression on the wry Bergen. The "Murphy Brown" star managed to find lasting love twice, first with French filmmaker Louis Malle, with whom she had a daughter, Chloe Malle, and stayed by his side until his untimely death from cancer. Several years later, Bergen found another lasting love in her second husband, Marshall Rose, a philanthropist and real estate mogul whom she lost to Parkinson's disease in 2025. Read on for more details about Bergen's star-studded dating history and the relationship that means more to her than any other.

Candice Bergen was in the upper echelon of society thanks to her famous father, which naturally led to her dating the offspring of the rich and famous. One such rich and famous person she dated in her youth was none other than President Donald Trump. Bergen recalled her college date night with Trump on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" while promoting the reboot of her hit series "Murphy Brown." In the revived series, it's revealed Murphy Brown went on a date with Trump as a teen, mirroring Bergen's real-life experience.

"I was very young, I was about 18," Bergen said in the interview. She explained the date happened while she was attending the University of Pennsylvania and recalled Trump was "wearing a burgundy suit with a burgundy vest and burgundy patent leather boots and was in a burgundy limousine. It was kind of a symphony in burgundy." She explained he wasn't "Donald Trump" as people might know him now, he was "just kind of a guy." Bergen wasn't exactly sure how they connected, assuming he "must have called me." As for how the date went, Bergen quipped, "I was home early."

Bergen also discussed the date with Trump in a 2020 New York Times profile, sharing other details. She said, "his knowledge of philosophy goes way beyond," and they went to a steakhouse in the aforementioned burgundy limo. "I remember it being just very slow going and heavy lifting, it was just like pulling a sledge. And then I was home early," she added of their interaction.

Candice Bergen had an early track record of connecting with public figures like Donald Trump as well as the late Henry Kissinger. Bergen met Kissinger through friends of her parents, who hosted a dinner party for Frank Sinatra and his date at the time and invited Kissinger. "I was his date because they were friends of my parents," Bergen explained on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" in 2018. "He was late picking me up because the Secret Service couldn't find Beverly Hills." The "Miss Congeniality" star recalled Kissinger as "highly intelligent and charming," but the dinner was more focused on a "mano-a-mano" between Kissinger and Sinatra over who was the most popular. Colbert asked Bergen who the better date was between Kissinger and Trump, and she replied, "Kissinger."

Bergen spoke about the date as well in her New York Times interview in 2020, recalling that when it came to the "mano-a-mano," "I think Frank won." Bergen was asked if Sinatra had gone on to try to date her in any capacity. "He did ask a friend of mine for my contact but it wasn't given,” she replied.

Candice Bergen dated another famous offspring when she was in her teens and twenties, Terry Melcher, the son of Hollywood icon Doris Day from her marriage to Marty Melcher. Melcher was a record producer known for his work with The Beach Boys and The Byrds, among other famous musicians. According to her interview on Ted Danson's "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" podcast, Bergen dated Melcher when she was "15 or 16" and then again when she was "22, maybe."

Vanity Fair referred to Melcher as her "childhood sweetheart," though it was clear they weren't meant to last. In her memoir, "A Fine Romance," Bergen called the house she eventually moved into with Melcher "never-never land," and it seemed she didn't feel like she fit into the counterculture lifestyle. "There were ... boys who, not four years before, I'd had egg fights with: They looked like their hair had exploded and they were wearing beads and flowers and they weren't kidding ... Evidently the Sweet Bird of Youth had passed me by like a Boeing and I found myself, at 21, peering at the generation gap like a tourist — from the far side," she wrote.

As many famous names as Candice Bergen dated in her youth, there were a few unknown men who didn't make the long-term cut. A 1984 New York Times interview tied to her first memoir, "Knock Wood," notes that in the book, Bergen mentions a number of "Mr. Wrongs" in her dating history. One particular former partner was a Hollywood producer who was politically active.

However, the man, referred to as "Robin" as in Robin Hood, according to the outlet, told her he didn't believe in exclusive relationships. ”Women are always drawn to men who are trouble," Bergen said in the interview. A separate interview with the outlet noted that Bergen's memoir revealed she almost married a man from the Almanach de Gotha, better known as a member of Europe's royalty or nobility.

Candice Bergen did end up marrying a European man, director Louis Malle of France. Bergen and Malle first met at a picnic and later a dinner at fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg's Los Angeles home, recalling to Time, "We were both so intensely ill at ease that we never even looked at each other. When he called a few years later, I was flabbergasted. And we had lunch for four hours at the Russian Tea Room. It was a wonderful love story."

Bergen told NPR that meeting him in her 30s was beneficial. "When you're advanced in life, you — your antenna go up very quickly when you think you have met someone where there will be a deep connection. And that happened with both of us. He was a very brilliant man. He could be incredibly charming, as only a Frenchman can be. I was just fascinated by him and trusted him," she said.

Bergan and Malle married in 1980. In the aforementioned 1984 New York Times interview, Bergen revealed she had "given up" on finding a partner until she met Malle. ”I had spent a lot of my life waiting for my prince, and I made some terrible mistakes in the process. It wasn't until I gave up that I found him," she said.

Candice Bergen certainly had success as an actress before she met her first husband, Louis Malle, but her career really took off after she landed the lead role on the sitcom "Murphy Brown" in 1988. By then, the couple had welcomed a daughter, Chloe Malle, whom Bergen raised mostly solo, not unlike her sitcom alter ego, while Malle returned to France to work after losing the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1987. As Bergen told The New York Times in 2020, "The distance was very hard on the marriage and then the balance of power was in question,” referring to her success with "Murphy Brown."

Despite the strain, they remained married and employed a complicated scheduling of flying to and from New York and Los Angeles while visiting with Chloe, according to her NPR interview. As Bergen told The New York Times, "I was very happy being married to Louis. He was really a great love of my life and we had a great time together, but you're pulled in different directions and then you have a child and they become the love of your life and that's hard."

Candice Bergen and Louis Malle were navigating a complicated but loving marriage when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Bergen said watching Malle, who "had endless reserves of energy," weaken was "incredibly cruel," according to her interview with NPR. "And because it's a catastrophic disease, it is very dramatic, and it is very painful to watch someone that you care about that deeply be struck down," she added.

Bergen also had to watch the impact Malle's illness had on their daughter, Chloe Malle. Bergen told NPR that father and daughter formed a special bond that had initially been less established due to distance earlier in her childhood. Regarding caring for her father, Bergen said of Chloe, "She did it on her own. And she did it beautifully and brilliantly. And she did it with courage and with humor."

Sadly, Malle died in 1995 at the age of 65 after a three-year struggle with the illness. Reflecting on their relationship, Bergen told the Los Angeles Times, "We loved each other. We had a wonderful time together. He was extremely brilliant. He knew everything about everything. He had this rampaging curiosity. He loved America. He loved American sports. It was thrilling to talk with him in bed at night about things."

Candice Bergen found a second great love in her second husband, Marshall Rose. The two met in 1998, and she went on to marry him in 2000. Recalling their first date, Bergen told CBS in 2015, "I just thought I trust this man completely and by dessert I was sort of in his pocket."

Bergen and Rose, a real estate developer and philanthropist, spent more time together than she and Malle did, something Bergen cherished. "He is the most attentive husband. He's kind and intelligent. He used to carry a briefcase. I just thought that was the most exotic thing I had ever seen. A guy carrying a box off to work. He just thinks that me and all of my friends are some place deeply crazy. He has given up trying to make sense out of us," she told the Los Angeles Times.

In an unfortunate similarity to her marriage to Louise Malle, Bergen lost Rose to illness in 2025, when he died at age 88 from Parkinson's disease, not long before their 25th wedding anniversary. Bergen also served as Rose's caregiver in his final days and offered advice to seniors who may be in a similar situation during a 2026 interview with AARP magazine. As she told the outlet, "[T]ake tiny breaks for yourself from time to time — short lunches with good old friends that you've lost touch with. Do things for yourself to keep yourself normal."

While it's clear that Candice Bergen loved both of her late husbands, Bergen fully admits that the greatest love of her life has been her daughter, Chloe Malle. Chloe was born in 1985, a moment Bergen calls "the greatest event in my life" in her 2020 New York Times interview. Bergen admitted in a 2015 Interview Magazine conversation with Sandra Bullock that she hadn't always planned on having a child but felt, "Suddenly I just did not want to miss it. I got pregnant, oddly quickly, and it was just such a gift." Additionally in her Interview conversation, Bergen called her second memoir, "A Fine Romance," a "love letter to my daughter." In the book, Bergen states, "I realized that I had existed for two reasons: to see Chloe into this world and to see Louis out of it" (via Vanity Fair).

Chloe grew up and began working at Vogue, eventually becoming its head of content in 2025, taking over the role from the legendary and stunning Anna Wintour. She married Graham Albert in 2015, and the couple have two children, Louis and Alice. Bergen is one of many celebrities who absolutely love being grandparents, telling her daughter during "The Run-Through" podcast hosted by Chloe and presented by Vogue, "I just love those two kids. I love them to death and they are so different from one another and so filled with life and love," she gushes of Chloe's 4-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. "I love getting to re-experience the joys of all that."