Veteran actress, Candice Bergen, hid the fact that she had a stroke in 2006 out of fear that she would no longer be offered leading roles. When she was put in the hospital for her heart condition she collaborated with her representatives to dismiss the occurrence as a rumor.

She told New York Magazine that she decided to conceal her health issues because she didn’t want to be seen as a liability and revealed that since her stroke, “My Memory is just … not quite the same.” She also admitted “I get worn out because I’m old.”

Now the aging comedian is showcasing her talent to Broadway; she plays the role of the politician’s neglected wife in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man,. She says she initially turned down the role because “she didn’t want to desert her husband at night.”

The play also stars James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, John Larroquette, Eric McCormack, Kerry Butler, Jefferson Mays and Michael McKean. Jones thinks “it is one of the best plays ever written.”

Bergen is best known for her leading roles in Murphy Brown (1988–1998), for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal (2004–2008), for which she was nominated for two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Here are some tweets about the play: