Meredith Baxter has been a major film and TV star for more than 40 years. She is best known for her role as Elyse Keaton on the smash hit series Family Ties with Michael J. Fox and Michael Gross. She accrued fans with Bridget Loves Bernie and won over audiences with her films Ben, the hit series The Doris Day Show, her Emmy-nominated role on Family with James Broderick, Sada Thompson, Kristy McNichol and Gary Frank, and her TV movie A Woman Scorned.
At age 63, after several marriages and five children, she stunned the world by coming out as a lesbian. We talked to her recently about her life.
San Diego LGBT Weekly: You have been selected to be the grand marshal of the 2011 San Diego Gay Pride parade. How did that come about?
Meredith Baxter: Yes, I am going to be the grand marshal! They extended the invitation and I said, “Oh, why not? I haven’t done this before.” So, here I am!
Gay fans are very loyal, as you will find out.
Just make sure they are screaming fans!
In the TV movie A Woman Scorned, you played La Jolla murderess Betty Broderick who killed her ex-husband and his new wife right here in Hillcrest!
Yes, indeed. She apparently still has some fans there. Oh, Jim, I would have to say she was probably one of the most fun characters I have played. Maybe “fun” isn’t necessarily the right word!
I read your new book Untied (Crown Archetype, Random House) and found that many parts of it are very funny. Did you inherit your sense of humor from your mom or dad?
Well, thank you! I probably got it from my father. He had a great sense of “pun,” and my brothers and I tried to outdo each other with the puns as well. We’d do word-sparring games. We inspired quick-thinking repartee with each other. Any attention I could garner from that was desirable.
In your book, you were not only hard on yourself, but also on ex-husband, actor David Birney.
Who? To tell you the truth, I really went easy on him and protected him. I didn’t say many of the things he did. I could have written a book that would have horrified people. I only wrote about things where I could illustrate what my thinking was and how I excused his behavior. I took the blame on myself. Horrible things happened, but I did not write about them.
Were you afraid to get out of your situation as many other abused women have been?
It’s men and women. When you are in an abusive relationship, you have no voice. It’s something that is not exclusive only to women. It’s about the dynamics that happen. He needed to be with someone he could bully and push around. I could only be with someone who had a strong, pushy personality.
That’s what I had grown up with. I understood that I didn’t like it necessarily, but it was familiar. I needed to be small. I couldn’t say anything and I had to be non-threatening. If someone treated me nicely, I found it suspect. It made me anxious and I didn’t know what to do with it because it was so unfamiliar.
After having had several husbands and five children, I know you didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Oh, I think I’ll be a lesbian!” How did that evolve?
I had a relationship with a woman in about 2003, and it was just because I liked her so much. It was a sexual relationship but my interaction with her never felt emotional. I just thought she was the greatest person. I left the relationship because I felt I was supposed to be with a guy. I learned nothing and went and got married again for four years.
Another woman was brought to your attention and piqued your interest.
A woman rented my little house out back. She was a lesbian soccer coach. I paid attention to wherever she was. The truth was, I had to be in a place where my mother had passed away, and my two youngest kids were out of the house. So I was not sandwiched there and was not responsible to anyone who was above me. I wasn’t frightened of anyone like I was my mother. I wasn’t responsible for anybody, so I was free for the first time.
Had you ever had lesbian feelings previously at any time in your life?
It never occurred to me that I was a lesbian. I wanted to know who I was in the world. After my relationship started, I never questioned it. That explains that!
