Candice Bergen Remembers Being the First Woman to Host “Saturday Night Live” and the First to Join the Five-Timers Club

Victoria EdelFri, May 15, 2026 at 4:23 PM UTC

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Candice Bergen hosting 'Saturday Night Live' in 1976
Credit: NBCUniversal via Getty -

Candice Bergen opened up about being the first woman to host Saturday Night Live

Bergen was also the first person to host the show twice and the first woman in the Five-Timers Club

Bergen said she felt the 'purest terror' hosting the show the first time

Candice Bergen is proud to be a trailblazer.

Bergen, who turned 80 earlier this May, opened up about her life and career in a new interview for The Run-Through with Voguealongside her daughter Chloe Malle, the head of editorial content for Vogue.

Malle, 40, said that Bergen went to a Saturday Night Live taping in early April to induct Jack Black into the Five-Timers Club, made up of people who have hosted five times or more. “You and Tina Fey are, as Lorne Michael says, local hires,” Malle said about the two actresses, who both live in New York. “So whenever he needs someone inducted, you're his first port of call.”

Malle also pointed out that Bergen was the first woman to host Saturday Night Live, “which at the time I'm sure you didn't feel like as big a deal, cause it had just started.” Bergen hosted the fourth installment of the show, after George Carlin, Paul Simon and Rob Reiner.

From left: Tina Fey, Emma Stone and Candice Bergen on 'Saturday Night Live' in 2023
Credit: Will Heath/NBC via Getty

Asked what people thought about the show then, Bergen admitted, “It took a while for the show to be discovered.”

She remembered loving Simon's episode. “[It] was a Thanksgiving show and he was dressed as a turkey and sang ‘Still Crazy After All These Years,' which I thought was brilliant,” she said.

Bergen felt less brilliant when the time came for her appearance. “Then I did the third show, and of course it was the purest terror,” she confessed. “Lorne said I look like Patty Hearst when she opened the door to the [Symbionese Liberation Army].”

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Bergen said she didn't remember any of her first sketches, but her daughter corrected her: “Yes, you do. Like the bee in Rock Center.” Bergen confirmed she did remember that sketch, but it was from the second show she did. Her first appearance was on Nov. 8, 1975; her second was just weeks later, on Dec. 20, 1975, making her the first person to host the show more than once.

“We did a sketch where I was dressed as Sonja Henie in a sort of red velvet with feathers on the bottom and ice skates and we did a ‘bee capades,' ” she said. The other cast members were dressed as bees, and they filmed on the ice skating rink at 30 Rock. “And we just skated around flailing, because none of us could really skate.”

Chloe Malle (left) and Candice Bergen in 2019
Credit: Christopher Polk/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Malle remembered that for one of her first Halloween costumes, Bergen also dressed her as a bee in “a full arc.”

At the time, Bergen was known mostly for her roles in movies, including 1966's The Group, 1971's Carnal Knowledge and 1975's The Wind and the Lion and Bite the Bullet. Her third time hosting came in December 1976, and her fourth in 1987.

A year later, Bergen was cast as the title role in Murphy Brown, a part that won her five Emmys. She returned to host SNL for a fifth and (so far) final time while that series was on the air, on May 19, 1990; the show would end in 1998 after 10 seasons. Murphy Brown also returned for a reboot season in 2018.

Bergen's many credits include her starring role on Boston Legal, her scene-stealing role as a Vogue editor on Sex and the City, 2000's Miss Congeniality and 2018's Book Club. Bergen has returned to SNL as a special guest, including to induct Emma Stone into the Five-Timers Club in 2023.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”