Old Saybrook ― Actress Candice Bergen spoke about “Murphy Brown,” beauty, comedy and the time that Katharine Hepburn scolded her while she was walking her dog on Sunday.

Bergen was in town to receive the Spirit of Katharine Hepburn Award from the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center (aka the Kate).

The Kate gives the award annually to someone who “embodies the bold spirit, fierce intelligence, and distinctive character” of the late Hepburn, the legendary actress who had a home here.

Bergen is best-known for her multi-Emmy-winning role in “Murphy Brown” (which ran 1988-98, with a revival in 2018-19), and her most recent movies included the “Book Club” hits.

But she has a wide-ranging career and not just in acting. She was a photojournalist early on, and she was later asked by a “60 Minutes” executive producer to be a reporter on the show. (She auditioned in story form and said, “It was tragic. I interviewed somebody on the city council of San Francisco, and I was just terrible.” But regardless, she hadn’t wanted to give up acting.) She has penned two best-selling memoirs.

Bergen answered questions onstage at the Kate from journalist Cynthia McFadden, and her responses showed Bergen’s comic finesse — the perfectly timed pauses, the sure-to-get-a-laugh inflections. Lying down contentedly at Bergen’s feet was her dog, Bruce.

McFadden said she sees similarities between Hepburn and Bergen — including that they are people of integrity and have played feisty, don’t-take-anything comic characters onscreen but are both rather shy in reality.

“Yes, but as long as I could get a laugh, I overcame my shyness,” Bergen said.

Bergen once ran into Hepburn on a hike. Bergen was with her dog.

“She was hiking toward me, and she went, ‘You’d better put him on the right leash,’” Bergen recalled.

She said Hepburn was such a force, and Bergen didn’t have anything to say back.

They had another one-degree-of-separation connection: Bergen once bought a house that Hepburn had lived in. It was originally actor John Barrymore’s aviary; he had birds and a room for those creatures.

“It was the stupidest thing I bought,” Bergen said.

Defining role

Bergen said it wasn’t easy getting the role of Murphy Brown. She read for the show’s creator, Diane English, which went well, but her audition for the network head didn’t. The network wanted someone considerably younger, but English held her ground.

Doing a weekly sitcom like “Murphy Brown,” Bergen said, is “very demanding, but it’s reeeeally fun.”

She said, “It was such a great cast, and we had such a great time with each other.”

Bergen doesn’t think she was a good actress in her early years.

“There are many parts that I’ve done that I shouldn’t have been given maybe because I looked a certain way or whatever. I didn’t know how to act, and it wasn’t until I did ‘Murphy’ – I don’t know how I got it but – that I sort of pulled it together,” she said.

McFadden said that Bergen was one of the most beautiful women of her generation, but it sounded as though that beauty got in the way a bit. Bergen said that, yes, it was something that had to be dealt with. For instance, people used to always remark on her nose; “’Great nose.’ ‘Yeah, but how do I be a person?’” she said.

Bergen said, “Murphy was great for me because (looks) didn’t matter. For me, what was heaven was getting a laugh.”

A comic touch

Indeed, Bergen has a way with a one-liner. McFadden pulled out a Proust questionnaire that Bergen responded to in a 2015 edition of Vanity Fair to see what her answers would be now, compared to then.

One question: What is your current state of mind? Bergen said at the Kate, “I am grateful. I am grateful to be healthy. I am grateful for just basic stuff. I’m grateful to have made a nice enough amount of money so I don’t have to worry about that. I’m grateful for my daughter, my grandchildren …”

McFadden told her that her answer in 2015 was restless.

“Not anymore,” Bergen said dryly, inspiring laughs in the audience.

McFadden recalled that, when she was at ABC, she interviewed Cher and asked if there was anything good about getting older. Cher responded, “Nothing.” So McFadden asked Bergen, 77, the same thing: Is there anything good about getting older?

“Well, yeah, you’re not DEAD,” she quipped, getting another round of laughs.

Being Charlie McCarthy’s ‘sister’

Bergen reminisced about growing up in Beverly Hills. She remembered playing dress-up with Liza Minnelli when they were around 7. Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland, had arranged for the studios to make miniature versions of costumes from movies like “Gone with the Wind,” and that’s what the two girls would dress up in.

Bergen is the daughter of famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. His most famous dummy was Charlie McCarthy, and Candice recalled that the puppet was treated like royalty (while she was not). When McCarthy went out in public, she said, it was a big deal and people would gather around.

At home, she said, “He had his own room, next to mine.” She paused. “And it was weird.”

‘Book Club’ and the world

As an actress, Candice found her own fame, earning an Oscar nomination for “Starting Over” and two Emmy nominations for “Boston Legal.” Her movies have ranged from “Gandhi” to “Miss Congeniality.” (Her film debut was in 1966’s “The Group,” which was partly filmed on the Connecticut College campus in New London.)

“Book Club: The Next Chapter,” a sequel that was released earlier this year, saw the friends from the first movie travel to Italy. McFadden asked who in the group of actresses, which consisted of Bergen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton and Mary Steenburgen, was the alpha. Bergen said, “Jane and Diane were the two leaders. I was always very deferential to them.”

Bergen said the experience of filming the new “Book Club” “was fantastic. First of all, we got along so well. They were all remarkable women. And we were in Rome for 2-1/2 months — hello!”

While much of Sunday evening was light, there were some serious moments. McFadden asked Bergen if she worried about the current climate where people are afraid to say what they think.

Bergen responded, “I worry about everything, (including) what we’ve done to the planet and the disregard that we’ve shown to the forces of nature and people’s lack of recognition of taking care of the earth. I just think it’s criminal. And you don’t get second chance at a planet.”

Family first

Bergen got emotional when discussing the struggle with lymphoma and eventual death in 1995 of her first husband, director Louis Malle, when their daughter Chloe was 10.

Bergen was in the midst of making “Murphy Brown” at the time. McFadden asked how she made it all work.

“Well, friends pitched in,” Bergen said, pausing as she teared up. “And she (Chloe) was very strong.”

She paused again.

“But it was a challenge. Because my husband was … so intelligent, so talented, he was a great director. I didn’t know how to fill the void,” she said.

The great joy of Bergen’s life is clearly Chloe, who is now a mother herself and is a writer who is a contributing editor at Vogue and has written for The New York Times, among other publications. Bergen said, “I just always thought she was born a champion,” noting that wasn’t anything to do with her parentage.

As for her grandchildren — a 3-year-old grandson and a 1-year-old granddaughter — Bergen said, “They’re great and such a gift.”

k.dorsey@theday.com