Knock WoodCandice 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. |
Contents
Section 1 | 3 |
Section 2 | 25 |
Section 3 | 40 |
Section 4 | 58 |
Section 5 | 75 |
Section 6 | 91 |
Section 7 | 103 |
Section 8 | 122 |
Section 11 | 186 |
Section 12 | 211 |
Section 13 | 229 |
Section 14 | 245 |
Section 15 | 259 |
Section 16 | 277 |
Section 17 | 287 |
Section 18 | 302 |
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actors actress American arrived asked Aviary began Bel Air Beverly Hills bill and coo brother called Candice Bergen Candy Charlie McCarthy Charlie’s child dark daughter didn’t dinner door dream dressing dummy Edgar and Charlie Edgar Bergen eyes face father feel felt film friends Gene Hackman girls guests hair hand head Henry Jaglom Hollywood horse hugged hung inside kids knew living room looked Louis Louis Malle man’s Mike Nichols morning mother moved movie stars never night once parents play political radio Ram Dass Robin saddle shoes scene seemed sense shooting shot smiling softly someone staring stayed studio suddenly talk tell Terry Terry’s things thought tiny took trying turned vaudeville W. C. Fields waited wanted wasn’t watched woman women wondered wore York young