Meredith Baxter

Meredith Ann Baxter (born June 21, 1947)[1] is an American actress and producer. She is known for her roles on the ABC drama series Family (1976–80) and the NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–89). A five-time Emmy Award nominee, one of her nominations was for playing the title role in the 1992 TV film A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story.

Meredith Baxter
Baxter at the Human Rights Campaign Gala in 2014
Born	Meredith Ann Baxter (1947-06-21) June 21, 1947 South Pasadena, California, U.S.
Other names	Meredith Baxter Birney
Education	James Monroe High School Hollywood High School Interlochen Center for the Arts
Occupation	Actress voice artist producer
Years active	1971–present
Television	Bridget Loves Bernie Family Family Ties
Spouse(s)	Robert Lewis Bush ​ ( m. 1966; div. 1969) David Birney ​ ( m. 1974; div. 1989) Michael Blodgett ​ ( m. 1995; div. 2000) Nancy Locke ​ ( m. 2013)
Children	5
Parent(s)	Whitney Blake (deceased) Thomas Baxter (deceased)
Relatives	Allan Manings (stepfather, deceased)

Early life

Baxter was born in South Pasadena, California, the daughter of actress turned director/producer Whitney Blake and Tom Baxter, a radio announcer.[2] After her parents were divorced in 1953, Baxter and her two brothers, Richard (born 1944) and Brian (born 1946), were raised by their mother in Pasadena. Her second stepfather was situation-comedy writer Allan Manings. She and her Family Ties co-star, Michael Gross, were both born on June 21, 1947.

Baxter was educated at James Monroe High School before transferring to Hollywood High School.[3] During her senior year, she attended Interlochen Center for the Arts as a voice major, but returned to Hollywood High, where she graduated in 1965.[4]

Career

Early years

Baxter got her first big break on television in 1972 as one of the stars of Bridget Loves Bernie, a CBS television-network situation comedy. The series was canceled after one season, but her co-star, David Birney became her second husband in 1974. Following their marriage and until their divorce in 1989, she was credited as Meredith Baxter Birney, under which name she became widely known several years later on Family. She played the role of Nancy Lawrence Maitland and received two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Continuing Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (1977 and 1978).

After Family ended, she starred with Annette O'Toole and Shelley Hack in Vanities (1981), a television production of the comedy-drama stage play about the lives, loves and friendship of three Texas cheerleaders starting from high school to post-college graduation; it aired as a part of Standing Room Only, a series on the premium-television channel HBO.

1980s and 1990s

In 1982, Baxter landed the role of Elyse Keaton, the former flower child matriarch of the Keaton family on the NBC sitcom Family Ties. In 1986, during her time on Family Ties, Baxter garnered critical acclaim for her dramatic performance as Kate Stark in the NBC television movie Kate's Secret, about a seemingly "perfect" suburban housewife and mother who is secretly suffering from bulimia nervosa. Following Family Ties, Baxter (whose marriage to Birney ended in 1989) produced and starred in telefilms. She portrayed a psychopathic kidnapper in The Kissing Place (1990) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special for her work in A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story (1992), based on the true story of a divorcée who was convicted of murder in the shooting of her ex-husband and his young wife. For her work on the television film My Breast (1994), she received a special award for public awareness from the National Breast Cancer Coalition. In 1997, Baxter once again played the mother of a character played by Michael J. Fox (who portrayed her son, Alex P. Keaton, on Family Ties), this time in two episodes of Spin City.[5]

Since 2000

In 2005, she began appearing in television commercials for Garden State Life Insurance Company. In 2006, she temporarily co-hosted—with Matt Lauer—Today, the NBC morning news and talk show. In 2007, she made a guest appearance on What About Brian, an ABC drama series. That same year, she also made several appearances as the dying mother of Detective Lilly Rush on Cold Case, a CBS police-procedural series. In recent years, Baxter created a skin-care line called Meredith Baxter Simple Works, which raises funds for Baxter's breast cancer research foundation.

Baxter was the guest speaker at the 2008 Southern Commencement for National University in La Jolla, California, and was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the university.[6]

On March 1, 2011, Baxter's memoir, titled Untied, was published.[7] In the book, she details her early life, her unhappy and in some cases abusive marriages, her struggles with and recovery from alcoholism, and her realization that she is a lesbian. The book became a New York Times bestseller.[8]

She is also a spokesperson for Consumer Cellular, a cell-phone company advertised as providing a cheaper alternative for senior citizens. She voiced the character "Elise Sr." in Dan Vs., which airs on The Hub. In April 2013, it was announced that Baxter would be in the season 4 finale episode of Glee, along with Patty Duke, as a mentor to Darren Criss's character Blaine Anderson and Chris Colfer's character, Kurt Hummel.[9] She also made a guest appearance on the ABC Family/Freeform series "Switched at Birth" as the widowed mother of Kathryn Kennish (portrayed by Lea Thompson).

On August 4, 2014, producers announced that Baxter would be joining The Young and the Restless, as Maureen, Nikki Newman's new drinking buddy, a "charming, intelligent, middle-class woman who has always aspired to a more privileged life than she has had. Baxter started appearing on the program on September 8. She also played the mother to "Stich" Raybourne and Kelly Andrews.[10]

Personal life

Marriages and children

Baxter in September 1990

Baxter has been married four times and has five children. In 1966, she married Robert Lewis Bush and they had two children — Theodore Justin "Ted" Bush (born May 10, 1967) and Eva Whitney Bush (born August 6, 1969); the couple divorced in 1971. In 1974, she married David Birney and was known professionally as Meredith Baxter Birney. The couple had three children, Kathleen Jeanne "Kate" Birney (born December 5, 1974) and twins Mollie Elizabeth and Peter David Edwin Birney (born October 2, 1984)[11] before divorcing in 1989. In 1995, she married actor and screenwriter Michael Blodgett; they were divorced in 2000.

On December 2, 2009, she came out as a lesbian during an interview with Matt Lauer on Today, and on the Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius-XM OutQ 102.[12][13] In 2005, she began a relationship with Nancy Locke, a general contractor. They were married on December 8, 2013, in Los Angeles.[14]

Baxter said she began her first homosexual relationship in 2002. She stated that finally coming to terms with her sexual orientation opened her eyes to the fact that for many years she knew something was different about her and why her relationships with men had failed.[15]

On March 1, 2011, Baxter made another intimate revelation while appearing on NBC's Today show. She promoted a new memoir that alleges emotional and physical abuse by her ex-husband David Birney, father of three of her children. ABC News tried to reach Birney for comment but could not. It claimed that he had told NBC he was denying the allegations. The ABC News website reported on March 1, 2011:

Meredith Baxter says in a new book, Untied, that she was a victim of emotional and physical abuse.

Baxter, the actress best known for playing hippie mom Elyse Keaton on the 1980s sitcom Family Ties, said that the abuser was her then-husband David Birney, who has denied the allegations.

In her memoir, Baxter alleges that Birney hit her more than once. "It was so sudden and unexpected, I couldn't tell you which hand hit me, or even how hard," she writes. "I do recall thinking, 'I'd better not get up because he's going to hit me again.' "

She writes that she coped with the marital violence by drinking heavily, but has been sober since 1990 (the year after she and Birney divorced).[16]

Regarding the fact that Baxter's marriage to Birney lasted throughout the entire seven seasons that she worked on Family Ties, ABC News explained,

Baxter said that her work helped her cope and she did not share her personal story with others.

"You learn to compartmentalize," she said on NBC. "When I got to the [television] studio, my home life was not happening. Nobody knew anything. I didn't have a social life. I did my work, I went home."[16]

The day after Baxter discussed Birney on the Today show, she traveled to Chicago to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show for further discussion of the topics covered in her Untied memoir.[17] Others who appeared included her Family Ties co-star Michael Gross. Winfrey's staff had arranged for him to surprise Baxter on-camera. Gross confirmed the assumption that Baxter had made throughout their seven years of working on the sitcom, that no one connected with the series had known or suspected that Baxter's husband was abusing her at the time. Gross was affectionate with Baxter on camera and expressed sorrow that she had endured such an ordeal for so long.[17] Birney categorically denied the claims that he had abused her in a statement to People magazine.[18]

Health issues

Baxter was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 for which she was treated and from which she has fully recovered.[7]

Filmography

Chad Everett and Baxter in 1975

Film

Year	Title	Role
1972	Stand Up and Be Counted	Tracy
1972	Ben	Eve Garrison
1976	All the President's Men	Debbie Sloan
1976	Bittersweet Love	Patricia
1990	Jezebel's Kiss	Virginia De Leo
1999	Elevator Seeking	Ann
2003	Devil's Pond	Kate
2005	Paradise Texas	Liz Cameron
2005	The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green	Harper Green
2008	The Onion Movie	Cooking Show Chef
2010	Airline Disaster	President Harriet Franklin
2013	Reading Writing and Romance	Mrs Wenders
2019	Undateable John	Beatrice

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	The Young Lawyers	Gloria	1 episode
1971	The Doris Day Show	April	1 episode — repackaging of unsold sitcom pilot "Young Love"
1971	The Partridge Family	Jenny	1 episode
1972	Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law	Ann Glover	1 episode
1972–1973	Bridget Loves Bernie	Bridget Fitzgerald Steinberg	24 episodes
1973	The Invasion of Carol Enders	Carol Enders	television film
1973	Doc Elliot	Jenny	1 episode
1973	The Cat Creature	Rena Carter	ABC television film
1974	Barnaby Jones	Jenny Sutherland	1 episode
1974	The Stranger Who Looks Like Me	Joanne Denver	ABC television film
1974	Young Love	April	CBS sitcom pilot, aired long after production
1974–1975	Medical Center	Paula Priscilla	2 episodes
1975	Target Risk	Linda Flayly	NBC television film
1975	The Imposter	Julie Watson	NBC television film
1975	The Streets of San Francisco	Jodi Dixon	1 episode
1975	The Night That Panicked America	Linda Davis	ABC television film
1975	Medical Story	Erica Schiff Sunny	2 episodes
1975	McMillan & Wife	Faye Leonard	1 episode
1976	City of Angels	Mary Kingston	3 episodes
1976	Wide World Mystery		1 episode
1976	Police Woman	Liz Robson	1 episode
1976–1980	Family	Nancy Lawrence Maitland	45 episodes
1977–1982	The Love Boat	Sandy Rytell	3 episodes
1978	Little Women	Meg March	NBC television miniseries
1979	The Family Man	Mercedes Cole	CBS television film
1980	Beulah Land	Lauretta Pennington	NBC miniseries
1981	Vanities	Joanne	HBO televised presentation of stage production
1981	The Two Lives of Carol Letner	Carol Letner	CBS television film
1982	Take Your Best Shot	Carol Marriner	CBS television film
1982–1989	Family Ties	Elyse Keaton	171 episodes
1985	The Rape of Richard Beck	Barbara McKee	ABC television film
1985	Family Ties Vacation	Elyse Keaton	NBC television film
1986	Kate's Secret	Kate Stark	NBC television film
1987	The Long Journey Home	Maura Wells	CBS television film
1988	The Diaries of Adam and Eve	Eve	television film
1988	Mickey's 60th Birthday	Elyse Keaton	television special
1988	Winnie	Winnie	NBC television film
1989	She Knows Too Much	Samantha White	NBC television film
1990	The Kissing Place	Florence Tulane	USA Network television film
1990	Burning Bridges	Lynn Hollinger	ABC television film
1991	Bump in the Night	Martha Tierney	RHI Entertainment Television Movie
1992	A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story	Betty Broderick	CBS television films Alternate title: "Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick - The Final Chapter"
1992	Stolen Love	DeeDee	ABC Television film
1993	Darkness Before Dawn	Mary Ann Guard	NBC television film also co-executive producer
1993	CBS Schoolbreak Special — Other Mothers	Paula Hensen	1 episode; won a Daytime Emmy Award for her role
1994	For the Love of Aaron	Margaret Gibson	television film
1994	One More Mountain	Margaret Reed	ABC television film
1994	My Breast	Joyce Wadler	CBS television film also co-executive producer
1995	Betrayed: A Story of Three Women	Amanda Nelson	ABC television film also co-executive producer
1996	The Faculty	Flynn Sullivan	13 episodes also executive producer
1996	After Jimmy	Maggie Stapp	television film
1997	Dog's Best Friend	Cow (voice)	television film
1997	The Inheritance	Beatrice Hamilton	television film
1997	Let Me Call You Sweetheart	D.A. Kerry McGrath	The Family Channel television film
1997	Miracle in the Woods	Sarah Weatherby	television film
1997	Spin City	Macy Flaherty	2 episodes: "Family Affair" (Part 1) and "Family Affair" (Part 2)
1999	Holy Joe	Annie Cass	CBS television film
1999	Down Will Come Baby	Leah Garr	CBS television film
1999	Miracle on the 17th Green	Susan McKinley	CBS television film
2000	The Wednesday Woman	Muriel Davidson	CBS television film
2001	A Mother's Fight for Justice	Terry Stone	Lifetime Television film
2001	Aftermath	Carol	television film
2001	Murder on the Orient Express	Mrs. Caroline Hubbard	television film
2002	A Christmas Visitor	Carol Boyajian	Hallmark Channel television film
2003	7th Heaven	Mrs. Jones	1 episode: "Go Ask Alice"
2004	Half & Half	Joan Tyrell	1 episode
2004	Angel in the Family	Lorraine	Hallmark Channel television film
2005	The Closer	Congresswoman Simmons	1 episode: "Fantasy Date"
2006	Brothers & Sisters	Margaret Packard	1 episode: "For the Children"
2006–2007	Cold Case	Ellen Rush	5 episodes
2007	What About Brian	Frankie	1 episode: "What About All That Glitters..."
2009	Bound by a Secret	Ida Mae	Hallmark Channel television film
2009–2011	Family Guy	Elyse Keaton / herself / Carol	3 episodes
2009	Brothers	TV Mom	1 episode: "Episode: Commercial – Coach DMV"
2010	We Have to Stop Now	Judy	Web series Episode: "The Grass Is Always Greener"
2010	RuPaul's Drag U	Herself	1 episode: Appeared as a guest judge
2011	The Oprah Winfrey Show	Herself	1 episode
2011	Dan Vs.	Elise Sr.	4 episodes
2012–2015	Switched at Birth	Bonnie Tamblyn Dixon	2 episodes
2012	Naughty or Nice	Carol Kringle	Hallmark Channel television film
2013	Glee	Liz	1 episode
2013	The Neighbors	Mother Joyner	2 episodes
2013	Shadow on the Mesa	Emilie Rawlins	Hallmark Drama television film
2014	The Young and the Restless	Maureen Russell	Recurring
2014–2015	Finding Carter	Gammy	10 episodes
2015	Becoming Santa	Jessica Claus	Lifetime television film
2015	Being Mary Jane	Simone	Episode: "Some Things Are Black and White"
2016	Skirtchasers	Lilah Samuels	Television film
2016	Hell's Kitchen	Herself	Episode: "7 Chefs Compete"
2016	Code Black	Joanna	Episode: "Landslide"

Award nominations

Year	Award	Work	Result
1977	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series	Family	Nominated
1978	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series	Family	Nominated
1992	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special	A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story	Nominated
1994	Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Nominated
2007	TV Land Award	Lady You Love To Watch Fight For Her Life in a Movie of the Week	Nominated
2015	Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Guest Performer in a Drama Series[19]	The Young and the Restless	Nominated

References

1. "Meredith Baxter". TVGuide.com. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
2. Meredith Baxter profile at FilmReference.com; accessed December 6, 2009
3. Baxter, Meredith (2011). Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering. Random House LLC. p. 34.
4. Baxter 2011 pp. 41,47
5. Spin City "Family Affair" details on IMDb.
6. Johnson, Tony (July 28, 2008). "National University Commencement 2008 - Could Be Good, Could Be Bad" Archived July 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. The Herald; accessed December 2, 2009.
7. "Meredith Baxter: The Ties that bind". The Star. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
8. "Hardcover Nonfiction - March 27, 2011". New York Times. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
9. Dos Santos, Kristin (April 13, 2013). "Glee Casts Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter as Lesbian couple". E! News.
10. Logan, Michael (August 4, 2014). "Exclusive: Meredith Baxter Joins The Young and the Restless". TV Guide. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
11. Staff writer "Biography for Meredith Baxter"
12. "Actress Meredith Baxter Out on SIRIUS XM 24/7 LGBT channel". Windy City Times. December 2, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
13. "YouTube.com". YouTube.com. December 2, 2009. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
14. Nahas, Aili (December 8, 2013). "Meredith Baxter Marries Nancy Locke". People.
15. Rao, Vidya (December 2, 2009)"'Family Ties' Mom: I Am a Lesbian — Meredith Baxter Says She Has Been Dating Women for the Past Seven Years". Today (via MSNBC); accessed December 2, 2009.
16. James, Susan Donaldson (March 1, 2011). "Meredith Baxter Says Husband Abused Her". ABC News.
17. Oprah's web site documents Baxter's appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show on March 2, 2011
18. Mike Fleeman,People March 4th 2011,"David Birney Denies Abuse Claims By Meredith Baxter"
19. "The 42nd Annual Daytime Emmy Award Nominations" (PDF). New York: emmyonline.org and National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. March 31, 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 31, 2015.

Sources

• Untied by Meredith Baxter. © 2011; ISBN 978-0-307-71930-0. Crown Archetype (Random House)

External links

• Meredith Baxter on IMDb
• Meredith Baxter at AllMovie
• Meredith Baxter at the TCM Movie Database