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Meredith Baxter
Baxter at the Human Rights Campaign Gala in 2014
Born	Meredith Ann Baxter (1947-06-21) June 21, 1947 (age 77) South Pasadena, California, U.S.
Other names	Meredith Baxter Birney
Education	Interlochen Center for the Arts
Occupations	Actress producer
Years active	1971–present
Spouses	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
Parents	Tom Baxter (father) Whitney Blake (mother)

Meredith Ann Baxter (born June 21, 1947) is an American actress and producer. She is known for her roles on the CBS sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie (1972–1973), ABC drama series Family (1976–1980) and the NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989). 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.

Early life

Baxter was born on June 21, 1947, in South Pasadena, California, the daughter of actress, director and producer Whitney Blake and Tom Baxter, a radio announcer. 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.

Baxter was educated at James Monroe High School before transferring to Hollywood High School. 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.

Career

Baxter got her first appearance in television in 1970 on an episode of The Partridge Family in its second season. She later appeared in 1972 as one of the stars of Bridget Loves Bernie, a CBS television network situation comedy. The series was canceled after one season. Her co-star, David Birney, became her second husband in 1974. Until they were divorced in 1989, she was credited as "Meredith Baxter Birney", under which name she became widely known in 1976 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). In 1976 she played the wife of White House staffer Hugh W. Sloan Jr. in All the President's Men.

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.

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 earned critical acclaim for her dramatic performance as Kate Stark in the NBC television film Kate's Secret, about a seemingly "perfect" suburban housewife and mother who is secretly suffering from bulimia nervosa. Following Family Ties, Baxter produced and starred in television films. 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 Betty Broderick, 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.

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 in 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.

On March 1, 2011, Baxter's memoir, titled Untied, was published. 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.

She is also a spokesperson for the senior mobile service provider Consumer Cellular. She voiced the character "Elise Sr." in Dan Vs.. 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. 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.

Personal life

Marriages and children

Baxter has been married four times and has five children.

• Robert Lewis Bush (1966–1971, divorce); 2 children, born 1967 and 1969
• David Birney (1974–1989, divorce); 3 children, born 1974, and twins, born 1984
• Michael Blodgett (1995–2000, divorce)
• Nancy Locke (2013–present)

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. She said that accepting her sexual orientation helped her understand why, in part, previous relationships with men had failed.

On March 1, 2011, while promoting a memoir, Baxter alleged that ex-husband David Birney had emotionally and physically abused her. Birney denied the allegations. ABC News reported that:

Meredith Baxter says in a new book, Untied, that she was a victim of emotional and physical abuse... then-husband David Birney, who denied the allegations... Baxter alleges that Birney hit her more than once... 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).

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 memoir. Winfrey's staff had arranged for Family Ties co-star Michael Gross 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. Birney vehemently denied the claims that he had abused Baxter.

Diet

Baxter is a vegetarian.

Health issues

Baxter was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. After treatment, she made a full recovery.

Filmography

Film

Television

Award nominations

Books

• Baxter, Meredith (2011). Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering. New York: Crown Archetype. ISBN 978-0-307-71930-0. OCLC 768710740.

References

1. Brant, Marley (2006). Happier Days: Paramount Television's Classic Sitcoms, 1974-1984. Billboard Books. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8230-8933-8.
2. TV Guide. Triangle Publications. 1972. p. 2.
3. Brant, Marley (2006). Happier Days Paramount Television's Classic Sitcoms, 1974-1984. Billboard. p. 212. ISBN 9780823089338.
4. Baxter, Meredith (2011). Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering. New York: Crown Archetype. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-307-71930-0. OCLC 768710740.
5. Baxter 2011 pp. 41,47
6. "TV View: CABLE OPERATORS INCREASINGLY LOOK TO THEATER". The New York Times. Retrieved July 17, 2021
7. 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.
8. ^ "Meredith Baxter: The Ties that Bind". The Star. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
9. "Hardcover Nonfiction – March 27, 2011". The New York Times. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
10. Dos Santos, Kristin (April 13, 2013). "Glee Casts Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter as Lesbian couple". E! News.
11. Logan, Michael (August 4, 2014). "Exclusive: Meredith Baxter Joins The Young and the Restless". TV Guide. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
12. Staff writer "Biography for Meredith Baxter"
13. ^ "Actress Meredith Baxter Out on SIRIUS XM 24/7 LGBT channel". Windy City Times. December 2, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
14. ^ "Meredith Baxter: Why I Came Out". Sirius XM. December 2, 2009. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2013 – via YouTube.
15. Nahas, Aili (December 8, 2013). "Meredith Baxter Marries Nancy Locke". People.
16. 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.
17. James, Susan Donaldson (March 1, 2011). "Meredith Baxter Says Husband Abused Her". ABC News.
18. ^ Oprah's web site documents Baxter's appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show on March 2, 2011
19. Mike Fleeman,People March 4th 2011,"David Birney Denies Abuse Claims By Meredith Baxter"
20. Burros, Marian (1992). "Vegetarians are Coming and You May Be Among Them, If Prognosticators Have Guessed Right". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
21. "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.

External links

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

• 1947 births
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses
• 21st-century American LGBTQ people
• 21st-century American memoirists
• 21st-century American women writers
• Actresses from Los Angeles
• American film actresses
• American lesbian actresses
• American lesbian writers
• American television actresses
• American women memoirists
• American women television producers
• American voice actresses
• Daytime Emmy Award winners
• Hollywood High School alumni
• Interlochen Center for the Arts alumni
• Lesbian memoirists
• LGBTQ people from California
• LGBTQ television producers
• Living people
• People from South Pasadena, California
• Television producers from California
• Writers from Los Angeles