Quick Facts
Biography
Judith-Marie Bergan was a film, television and stage actress. The films she had starred in include Abduction, Bloodrage, The Secret Life of Kathy McCormick and Finding Kelly. She also made appearances in Television series such as Brothers, and had reoccurring roles in Soap and Maggie. She was married to cinematographer João Fernandes. She died on August 20, 2016.
Background
Bergan was born in Indianapolis in 1948. Her young to teenage years were spent there as well as in Louisville and Highland Park.
Career
Television
In 1977, she appeared in Charlie's Angels, playing the part of Raven in the Angels on the Air episode that also starred Nicolas Coster and John Forsythe. In 1987 she appeared in Days of Our Lives as Elizabeth Harley. Between 1977 and 1978 she appeared in various episodes of Soap as Marilyn McCallam. In a December 1984 Highway to Heaven episode "Hotel of Dreams" she played Allison Rutledge, a difficult guest who unsuccessfully tried to cause trouble for the main characters. In the 1987 TV series Hard Knocks, she played Maggie a sarcastic lady who happened to be a restaurateur and who was also an ex-con and informant.
Film
She played the lead role of Patricia Prescott in the Joseph Zito directed / Kent E. Carroll produced film Abduction. I based on the Harrison James novel Black Abductor by Harrison James. The film came out in October 1975. She played the part of a young newspaper heiress who was kidnapped by a group of radicals and then sympathizes with their cause. In 1978 she had a role in the Delbert Mann directed Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, a made for television drama about the wife of a disabled man who has an extramarital affair. The following year she co-starred as Beverly Stevens in the horror film Bloodrage which was directed by Joseph Zito.
Her final film was Finding Kelly in 2000.
Stage
In 1997, having left her television and film career she became a member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and took on a variety of roles and spent 16 seasons with the company.
One of the roles that she played was that of Mary in Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, about a family which was set in or around 1912. She played the part of a mother who because of a painful birth delivery was introduced to drugs by her doctor. She would later become a woman who by the evening would regress to a drugged out almost catatonic state.
As a recognized and respected stage actress, she was recognized enough to have the Oregon Shakespeare Festival dedicate it's 2017 season to her honor.
Death
Suffering from Lung Cancer, she died at her home on Saturday, August 20, 2016. She was survived by her cinematographer husband, Joao Fernandes, as well as her two sisters, Brooke and Joan.