DL Book Club: "Untied," by Meredith Baxter

It's a fun read if you find a copy in a dumpster.

What does she say about her greatest role, The Betty Broderick movies????

Did she ever walk-in on David Birney being intimate with another man?

Isn't Birney supposed to be practically a caricature of a self absorbed narcissistic actor? I thought he was so hot when I was a boy.

Does she go after David Birney?

I remember Oprah having her on to promote the book. They teased it as having all these scandals. Then the worst dirt she had on David was once she said something he got mad at and then he said she ruined the holiday for everyone and then once in Paris they got into a fight in the hotel restaurant and he got up and went up to the room leaving her to take care of the bill.

Oprah looked like she was thinking THAT'S ALL YOU GOT? I'm firing whatever producer teased this as a great tell all show.

So Shirley Booth was really a bitch? Who knew?

Was there more than one Nancy on Family? When did Merideth join the cast? After the pilot?

[quote]What does she say about her greatest role, The Betty Broderick movies????

She LOVED it, especially the scene where she guns the SUV through the front of the Broderick house (which was a real house in Hancock Park with a false front for the stunt).

The sequel happened after Meredith read the court transcripts (which came out after the first movie) and realized her semi-sympathy for Betty was entirely misplaced.

[quote]Was there more than one Nancy on Family? When did Merideth join the cast? After the pilot?

Elayne Heilveil played Nancy in the first six episodes. She was almost a Jewish take on Nancy. They recast it with Jane Actman and then Fred Silverman fired her before the first episode of the second season aired. He gave the part to Meredith thinking her cool blonde take on the character better suited Nancy.

In the pilot, which was part of the six-episode miniseries in the spring of 1976, Nancy was played by Elayne Heilveil. She was pretty awful, and it's clear the producers thought so, too — after the pilot, Nancy is barely in any of the episodes.

When Family was picked up as a weekly series for 1976-77, the producers recast Jane Actman as Nancy. She shot at least one episode and perhaps a few.

New ABC president Fred Silverman did not like Jane Actman in the part, and he recast it with Meredith Baxter Birney, without consulting the producers, before the season started. Actman's scenes were reshot with MBB. They didn't air.

Oops, R9 beat me to it.

[quote]Does she go after David Birney?

Oh, yeah. She says he hit her several times, but most of his abuse was verbal and mental. Apparently he thought of himself as a Serious Actor and her as a dilettante.

One of the funniest things was when she signed to do "Kate's Story," the TV movie about bulimia. She says David told her, witheringly, "I guess if you want to be known as the woman who throws up on TV ... "

Bump for more

That lesbian from Family Ties?

Birney was so handsome. What a piece of shit.

When I was in 4th grade, I named our new puppy Bridget after her character in Bridget Loves Bernie. Did she mention that in her book?

Agreed, “Untied” was an excellent read.

Meredith Baxter didn’t trash her mother, but it definitely seemed like Whitney Blake’s main priority was her career and not Meredith and her brothers. There was a photo in the book of pre-Hollywood Whitney (or Nancy, her real name) before she had a nose job and a substantial weight loss, and she is unrecognizable.

Another thing I remember Meredith writing that she was offered the role of William Holden’s daughter in “The Towering Inferno”, but she had just married David Birney and didn’t want to accept a role so soon that would involve time away from him. Susan Blakely inherited the role.

Any dirt? I met MBB in Sherman Oaks . Super gracious, but nervous energy

I always thought Whitney Blake looked like a low rent Kim Novak. I had no idea she'd had a nose job. Is she still with us or did MBB have to wait until she died before she wrote her tell-all?

And I refuse to believe Shirley Booth did anything to Whitney that was unjustified.

David Birney seemed like a narcissistic creep in the book. Meredith seemed to have SEVERE self-esteem issues her whole life, and her marriage to him didn’t help.

Trying to remember dirt …Lana Turner was drunk during the filming of the movie she and Meredith did together, and years later, Meredith recognized some kind of those alcoholic traits in herself.

Meredith was awed working with Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men”. No dirt or juicy stories there.

Leaving a screening of one of Meredith’s TV movies, mom Whitney turned to her, pulled her face back, and said very seriously, “Meredith, it’s time” (for a facelift — thanks, Mom — er, Whitney!)

Meredith Baxter appeared as the daughter of Ernest Borgnine (!) and Shelley Winters (!!) on a “Love Boat” episode shot in Italy. Many people who worked with her have a “Shelley Winters is a Piece of Work” story to share, but if Meredith has any, they weren’t included in her book.

Thanks OP, just got it as an ebook from the library!

How on earth did I reach this age without learning that Whitney Blake was her mother?

Or maybe I'm so old I forgot.

In the December 2017 edition of the Wide Wide World newsletter for Dartmouth College class of 1961 alumni, it was disclosed that David Birney had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.[3] ... wiki

Her grown children appeared with her on that “Oprah” episode, if memory serves. Very attractive kids, and they seemed devoted to their mom.

R19, per Wikipedia: Whitney Blake died in 2002 -- the book was published in 2011.

Meredith fucked her Dutch costar of Burning Bridges.

Get that stanksleeve sizemeat, Mer!

Meredith would drink white wine in a plastic Solo cup on the set of Family Ties. She was half in the bag during some of the episodes.

In Meredith’s defense, there was a lot of drinking on sets in the 80s, many actors did that back then

David Birney sounds manipulative and unbearable.

But Meredith sounds like she was just......not a person with a strong mind. Maybe a people pleaser. Her book, at least at the beginning, reminded me a bit of Cybill Shepherd's book. Everything was a tragedy that happened TO her. She acted as if she had no control over David, and their divorce took eight - EIGHT! - years to finalize.

It was only later in the book that she started to take a level of responsibility for her own actions.

Meredith wrote that Whitney Blake was unhappy doing “Hazel”, but it was her highest-profile gig, and let’s face it, if she’s remembered at all, it’s as Mrs. B. on “Hazel” and as the mother of Meredith Baxter.

I also don’t understand Whitney’s belief that Shirley Booth wanted her to appear dowdy on the show. Shirley Booth was never a glamour girl and certainly wasn’t playing one on “Hazel”. And despite that, Whitney still managed to be one of the more stylish TV moms.

Exactly, R29. I read this book and wanted to throw it across the room. Yet another celebrity memoir where everything happened to her and she was culpable for nothing and not responsible for the long term consequences of any of her bad decisions. "Look what they did to me!" So much complaining for someone who has had a pretty charmed life, at least with her work. If her private life is a mess, it might be because SHE was a mess--but she never comes to that conclusion, it's all everyone else's fault.

Lesbian now, but enough dick in her to make five kids. Wouldn't she have known before?

She seems to be the kind of self-obsessed, navel gazing celeb who, whether consciously or unconsciously, makes sure she lives in a world that's all about her; her need to be at the center of things--blameless for everything and still room to complain--it goes beyond sexual orientation, she just needs someone who feeds the ego and career.

Let's just say it wasn't a very far walk from the page to the stage for her to play Nancy on FAMILY.

Interesting assessment, R32! I think there are some definite similarities between Meredith Baxter and Nancy, the character she played on “Family”. But one big difference is that Nancy was always Daddy’s Princess, and Meredith was never anyone’s Princess, which may be a key to her massive self-esteem issues.

This thread makes me want to revisit the book. The dynamic with her mother Whitney was definitely odd, with Whitney being so doggedly non-maternal to her children. Who knows what that can do to a person? I remember an anecdote during Meredith’s first marriage, when as a young mother, she became seriously ill (I can’t remember if she was hospitalized at one point). Whitney came over and took care of Meredith’s children warmly and without complaint. Meredith was stunned, since this warmth and maternal kindness was so unlike Whitney. But as soon as Meredith recovered, Whitney retreated.

Few actresses have benefitted from looks and nepotism more than MBB. She's just not a very good actor, the fact that the producers of a SITCOM were willing to build an entire show around her is utterly baffling. They learned their lesson, though, when MJF wound up stealing the show and because MBB had a clause in her contract they had to pay her as much/or more than they payed him, which I'm sure by then end of the series was a pretty hefty sum.

Any DLers see this? I think Meredith wrote in her book that it was a troubled production, but I don’t remember if she got specific. It IS a good cast, though!

David Birney reminds me of Robert Reed in that they were both serious actors who ended up getting cast in shit projects and ended up frustrated and miserable.

I did have SOME fine projects!

“The Cat Creature” was a hoot!

Had she been born 10 years earlier she could easily have been a Petticoat Junction girl.

Dykey Jo Bradley?