Polly Bergen

Born: 14 July 1930
Where: Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

"I'm one of those people who always needs a mountain to climb. When I get up a mountain as far as I think I'm going to get, I try to find another mountain." - Polly Bergen

And challenges were indeed a focus of Bergen's professional life.

The result of her slog was a career that has carried through five decades of music, mirth and drama and a reign as a symbol of beauty.

Bergen is best recalled for her numerous books on how any woman can create style on a shoe-string, her numerous musical albums and her roles in film and TV, especially the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War.

Her film debut came in 1950 in At War With the Army, and Bergen's next big project was her own variety series The Polly Bergen Show.

Another highlight of her career was her role in The Caretakers, which won Bergen international plaudits and bestwoed upon the actress the credibility to form the Polly Bergen Co., creating and selling cosmetics.

More recently the veteran actress has co-starred in John Waters' Cry-Baby, and in 2000, at the age of 70, she resumed her singing career and began making night-club appearances.

Bergen returned to Broadway to play Carlotta Campion in the Broadway revival of Follies, for which she earned a Tony nomination, and in 2001, back a strong force on the stage, she appeared in the Off-Broadway run of The Vagina Monologues.