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A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering
Crown
March 2011
On Sale: March 1, 2011
Featuring: Meredith Baxter
304 pages ISBN: 0307719308 EAN: 9780307719300 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
“I remember Sarah asking me, when I’d just begun therapy
with her, what I looked for in a man. After a few
moments of silent, tense deliberation I had it.
‘Hair,’ I blurted. ‘He has to have
hair.’” Meredith Baxter is a beloved
and iconic television actress, most well-known for her
enormously popular role as hippie mom, Elyse Keaton, on
Family Ties. Her warmth, humor, and brilliant smile
made her one of the most popular women on television, with
millions of viewers following her on the small screen each
week. Yet her success masked a tumultuous personal story and
a harrowing private life. For the first time, Baxter is
ready to share her incredible highs, (working with Robert
Redford, Doris Day, Lana Turner, and the cast of Family
Ties), and lows (a thorny relationship with her mother,
a difficult marriage to David Birney, a bout with breast
cancer), finally revealing the woman behind the
image. From her childhood in Hollywood, growing up the
daughter of actress and co-creator of One Day at a
Time Whitney Blake, Baxter became familiar with the ups
and downs of show business from an early age. After
wholeheartedly embracing the 60s counterculture lifestyle,
she was forced to rely on her acting skills after her first
divorce left her a 22-year-old single mother of two. Baxter
began her professional career with supporting roles in the
critically panned horror film Ben, and in the
political thriller All the President's
Men. More lucrative work soon followed on the
small screen. Baxter starred with actor David Birney as the
title characters in controversial sitcom Bridget Loves
Bernie. While the series only lasted a year, her
high-profile romance with Birney lasted 15 volatile and
unhappy years. Hiding the worst of her situation from even
those closest to her, Baxter’s career flourished as her
self-esteem and family crumbled. Her successful run as Nancy
on Family was followed by her enormously popular role
on Family Ties, and dozens of well-received
television movies. After a bitter divorce and custody
battle with Birney, Baxter increasingly relied on alcohol as
a refuge, and here speaks candidly of her decision to take
her last drink in 1990. And while another ruinous
divorce to screenwriter Michael Blodgett taxed Baxter’s
strength and confidence, she has emerged from her
experiences with the renewed self-assurance, poise, and
understanding that have enabled her to find a loving,
respectful relationship with Nancy Locke, and to speak about
it openly. Told with insight, wit, and disarming
frankness, Untied is the eye-opening and inspiring
life of an actress, a woman, and a mother who has come into
her own.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Untied
Ms. Baxter sounds like an amazing woman and Untied sounds like a very interesting story - can't wait to read it. (Karen Cherubino 10:21pm March 3, 2011)
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