Actress Judith-Marie Bergan (1948-2016)

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Judith-Marie Bergan, a 16-year member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company and an accomplished television actress, passed away early Saturday morning, Aug. 20, at her home in Ashland after a battle with cancer.

“Judith-Marie was one of our most accomplished and beloved long-term company members,” said OSF artistic director Bill Rauch. “Her dazzling performances were deliciously varied but consistently full of wit, ferocity and heart. The OSF acting company has an aspirational set of values for the ideal rep actor, and as a collaborator and colleague Judith embodied those values every single day she came to work. She was also one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. We will miss her with the kind of passionate abandon that she brought to our company and audiences for two decades.”

Bergan’s first season at OSF was in 1997, when she played Elena Guarneri in the world premiere of The Magic Fire, which went on to play at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. She returned to the company in 2000 to play Lorraine Sheldon in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and the Chorus in "The Trojan Women." In the ensuing 16 years, some of her favorite roles included Claire in "Fuddy Meers" (2001), Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra" (2003), Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest" (2006), Violet Weston in "August: Osage County" (2011), Mary Tyrone in "Long Day’s Journey into Night" (2015) and Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations" (2016).

"(Bergen is) the anchoring presence throughout the action," Tidings reviewer Jeffrey Gillespie wrote of her performance as Miss Havisham. "Bergan is adept at playing desolate women who have been abandoned in a garden of regret. Her turn as Mary in last season's 'Long Day's Journey into Night' left this critic with, well, great expectations as to what she might do with Dickens, and Bergan delivers. Her languid, wasted Havisham is terrific. She plays out the characters longing and self-loathing with exquisite detail, a wizened hand in the dark."
“Judith-Marie came to work at OSF in 1997 playing a delightful role in Lillian Groag’s The Magic Fire,” said OSF artistic director emerita Libby Appel. “It was so clear from the moment she stepped on the Bowmer stage that she was a high-quality actor, with a sharp wit, a sparkling intelligence and a beautiful, elegant demeanor. What a rare find! ... Her brilliance in plays like 'Long Day’s Journey into Night,' 'August: Osage County,' 'The Cherry Orchard' and 'Great Expectations' ... made it apparent that Judith ranks among the great American actors.

“Along with her extraordinary talent and skills in the theater came a loving, poised, sophisticated and wonderful human being,” added Appel. “She was a generous friend, truly caring about the people in her life. ... She invested in people with love and true friendship.”
Bergan also worked at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre and The Old Globe Theatre.
Her TV credits included being a series regular on "All is Forgiven," "Domestic Life," "Hard Knocks" and "Maggie"; guest star roles in "Matlock," "NYPD Blue," "Murphy Brown," "Empty Nest," "Civil Wars" and "Major Dad"; and co-star in movies-of-the-week and mini-series "Two Small Voices," "The Betty Broderick Story," "In the Blink of an Eye" and "Bluegrass."

Judith-Marie Bergan was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1948. She received her BFA from the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She is survived by her husband, cinematographer Joao Fernandes, and two sisters, Brooke and Joan.
The role of Miss Havisham in OSF’s production of Great Expectations is now being played by Caroline Shaffer.