Polly Bergen (born Nellie Paulina Burgin on July 14, 1930, in Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.
She converted to Judaism from being a Southern Baptist (her grandfather was a Baptist minister) after marrying Hollywood talent agent Freddie Fields, by whom she had one biological child and two adopted children. She had two other marriages also that ended in divorce.
Just as other actresses such as Joan Collins and Luise Rainer have done, Bergen publicly revealed that she had undergone an abortion when she was a young woman.
She recently appeared in a revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. She also appeared on HBO's The Sopranos and the new drama Commander-in-Chief as the President's mother. Her role in that series, about the first female President, is notable because Bergen herself once played a President, in the 1964 film Kisses for My President.
