Meredith Baxter (Elyse Keaton)
Meredith Baxter was the big-name star in the cast when she signed on to play Elyse Keaton on "Family Ties." She already had two hits under her belt: the sitcom "Bridget Loves Bernie" and a twice-Emmy-nominated turn in the drama "Family."
When her run as hippie turned Keaton family matriarch ended, Baxter focused on TV movies, both in front of and behind the camera. She starred in and produced the television flicks...
more Meredith Baxter (Elyse Keaton)
Meredith Baxter was the big-name star in the cast when she signed on to play Elyse Keaton on "Family Ties." She already had two hits under her belt: the sitcom "Bridget Loves Bernie" and a twice-Emmy-nominated turn in the drama "Family."
When her run as hippie turned Keaton family matriarch ended, Baxter focused on TV movies, both in front of and behind the camera. She starred in and produced the television flicks "She Knows Too Much," "Darkness Before Dawn," and "My Breast," and she appeared in countless others. Baxter returned to series TV in the 1996 comedy "The Faculty," but it lasted just 13 episodes. In recent years, she's guest-starred on "Cold Case" and "Switched at Birth" and voiced characters on animated series, such as "Family Guy."
Baxter has been wed three times. Her first union, to costumer Robert Lewis Bush, produced two children but lasted only five years. Her marriage to her "Bridget Loves Bernie" co-star David Birney kept going for 16 years. They had three kids. And she tied the knot in 1995 to writer-actor Michael Blodgett, but they split five years later. In 2009, she came out as a lesbian to Matt Lauer on "The Today Show," and she now lives with her partner, general contractor Nancy Locke.
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