Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Candice Bergen Bringing Her Memoir “Knock Wood” to the Big Screen

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Exclusive: Great news. One of my favorite books, and a bestseller, is coming to the big screen. Candice Bergen has decided to produce her 1984 memoir, “Knock Wood,” at long last. The Emmy winning legendary actress won rave reviews for the memoir when it was published, for its humor and frankness about growing up in Hollywood as the daughter of famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

I’m told that there’s an offer out to an A lister, and he’ll have to learn ventriloquism. That means (I’m sorry): no dummy.

“Knock Wood” weaves a wonderful story of a Hollywood childhood that really was like a fantasy come true. Young Candice thought her father’s equally famed puppet, Charlie McCarthy, was her brother until she got a rude awakening one day and realized that as much as Edgar doted on Charlie, he wasn’t human.It also follows Bergen into her adulthood, through her start in classic movies like “The Group” and “Carnal Knowledge”– groundbreakers–and Hollywood in the late 60s.

Screenwriter Barbara Turner (“Hemingway and Gellhorn,” “The Company”) is adapting the book, and she’ll produce along with Bergen and James Trezza, with whom Turner partnered on the Oscar nominated “Pollock.” Turner, mother of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, is nominated for a Writers Guild Award this weekend for “Hemingway and Gellhorn.”

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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