Mary Bernadette Tan (Bernie) was born in Ipoh in 1958. Her father worked in the Prime Minister's Department while her mother was a headmistress. The youngest of four children, Bernie got heavily involved in heroin and was institutionalised at the State Mental Hospital at Tanjong Rambutan three times.

She finally gave up her drug habit to pursue a brilliant career in advertising with various agencies and peaking finally with Wings/BBDO with whom she became the first Malaysian and only the second Asian to win the coveted Max Lewis Memorial Challenge Trophy.

Her meteoric career was dealt a cruel blow by a motor accident in 1993. She now lives in Petaling Jaya with her pug, Junior, and six cats on a State welfare. She is seventy percent blind, deaf in one ear and paralysed in one leg and does weekly street counseling to drug addicts.