Knock Wood
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Knock Wood
I have read several memoirs of individual's whose careers have been in the limelight. Candice Bergen's Knock Wood contained the most intelligence and understanding of her everyday moments. It helped that she kept a diary to reference life events. What comes across clearly is how Candice possesses a mature assurance as a writer which she lacked as a budding newcomer, so the insights prove doubly revealing.I did wonder if her father's passing prompted (on a subconscious level) Candice to invest more into her acting craft since she would not be riddled with guilt at eclipsing her father. Edgar Bergen entertained vast audiences in the vaudeville scene and eventually on a popular radio show as a ventriloquist using a puppet named Charlie. It is rich psychological fodder to consider the impact of being a ventriloquist had on Edgar and his family. Without a doubt, Candice and her father shared a special bond that emphasized the lack of quality men in her company.I comprehend even more why the role of Murphy Brown (not discussed in the book) appealed to Candice. Both had journalist attributes, a steely exterior belying a lovely, compassionate person, crusader for causes, financially independent, and not made anxious by solitude.It is almost befitting that I read this a few weeks prior to Father's Day. Candice spotlighted her father in the position of one who adored and loved the man. A mutual respect demonstrated through sparring may have been the immature way they interacted while Candice was a young woman, but in the end, honest communication was introduced. It healed. Family relationships are rarely turbulent free. It is more a matter of adapting and finding what each person needs as you and the world change.
Product Description Candice Bergen’s bestselling 1984 memoir: an “engaging, intelligent, and wittily self-deprecating autobiography” ( The New York Times). Candice Bergen was born into the heady Hollywood of the 1950s. Before she became a celebrity in her own right and wrote her memoir, A Fine Romance, she wrote this book about being the “celebrity offspring” of Edgar Bergen, vaudeville and radio’s greatest dignitary/comedian. Her “sibling” was Charlie McCarthy, the impudent dummy beloved of millions. Bergen, much as he loved his daughter, was a man who “kept his emotions pressed and neatly hung,” and was more comfortable speaking to—and through—his brainchild. Charlie always had an answer. Charlie couldn’t let anyone down. Above all, Charlie never had to leave the paradise that was childhood . Knock Wood is a book about growing up—about the comedy of expectations that ruled Candice Bergen’s early life, about the ironies that attended her exotic rites of passage. The world offered her a wealth of options: adolescence in Swiss boarding schools; at nineteen, a plum role in Sidney Lumet’s The Group; quick entry into the profession of photojournalism; automatic acceptance among the esteemed company of the moment—be it the international jet set, Bel Air in the 1960s, or the world of radical politics in the 1970s. But always she carried the conviction that her gifts were untested, her luck unearned. Told with wit, self-deprecation, and a rare degree of courage, Knock Wood is the extraordinary record of Candice Bergen’s coming of age. It is at once the moving fable of the love between a father and a daughter, of a woman’s triumph over self-doubt, and a dazzling journal of American life and times over the past four decades. From the Inside Flap She was born blonde and beautiful, raised like a princess in the magical world of Hollywood, an instant star. But such easy victories weren't enough for Candy Bergen. With great wit, style, and exceptional honesty, the daughter of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the "sister" of famed talking dummy Charlie McCarthy tells the story of her struggle to come to terms with herself. About the Author Candice Bergen’s film credits include The Sand Pebbles, Carnal Knowledge, Starting Over (for which she received an Oscar nomination) , and Miss Congeniality. On television, she made headlines as the tough-talking broadcast journalist and star of Murphy Brown, for which she won five Emmys and two Golden Globes. She later starred with James Spader and William Shatner in the critically acclaimed series Boston Legal.
