Actor David Birney (1939-2022) - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Zoneboy · 05-02-2022, 09:35 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/a...rney-dead.html

David Birney, a classically trained theater actor who found success on the stage, including on Broadway, but who was best known for his role in “Bridget Loves Bernie” — a short-lived sitcom about an interfaith marriage in which he starred opposite his future wife, Meredith Baxter — died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 83.

The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, said Michele Roberge, who said she was his life partner.

Mr. Birney had been in a handful of television series and movies when he was cast in 1972 as Bernie Steinberg, a Jewish taxicab driver and struggling writer. Ms. Baxter played Bridget Fitzgerald, a schoolteacher from a wealthy Roman Catholic family.

“This is not a message show,” Mr. Birney, who was Irish American, said during an interview with The Kansas City Star before the series’s debut. “It’s not even an idea show.”

CBS gave it a plum time slot between “All in the Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” on Saturday night; it consistently finished among the top 10 programs in prime time and was the highest rated new series of the 1972-73 season.

But it attracted criticism from a broad spectrum of Jewish groups, which objected chiefly to its treatment of intermarriage between Jews and Christians as a positive outcome and complained that it used Jewish stereotypes. CBS publicly played down the criticism but, without an explanation, canceled “Bridget Loves Bernie” after 24 episodes.

“One segment of the protesters is truly concerned about the dilution of their faith,” Mr. Birney told The Daily News several months after the cancellation. “But intermarriage is on the rise, nevertheless. The threat doesn’t come from a harmless show such as ours, but from within.”

Mr. Birney and Ms. Baxter married in 1974.

In 1976, Mr. Birney received acclaim for playing John Quincy Adams in the public television production of “The Adams Chronicles.” Later that year, he was hired to play Frank Serpico, the corruption-fighting New York City detective, in an NBC series adapted from the Sidney Lumet movie “Serpico” (1973), which had earned Al Pacino an Oscar nomination for best actor.

Mr. Birney was cast in the role on the strength of his work playing an officer in two episodes of “Police Story,” another NBC series. But “Serpico” was canceled after less than a full season.

David Edwin Birney was born on April 23, 1939, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Cleveland. His father, Edwin, was an F.B.I. agent, and his mother, Jeanne (McGee) Birney, was a homemaker and later a real estate agent.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in 1961, Mr. Birney turned down a scholarship from Stanford Law School and instead chose to study theater arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received a master’s degree a year later. In the Army, he was part of a program called the Showmobile, which entertained at military bases in the United States.

Mr. Birney’s theater career began in earnest in 1965, when he won the Barter Theater Award, enabling him to spend a season acting in shows at the prestigious Barter Theater in Abingdon, Va. He moved on to the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut, and in 1967 he played Antipholus of Syracuse in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of “A Comedy of Errors.”

Mr. Birney made his Broadway debut two years later in Molière’s “The Miser.” And in 1971 he starred in a Broadway production of J.M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. Mr. Birney played Christy Mahon, who enters an Irish pub in the early 1900s telling a story about killing his father.

“Mr. Birney had a **** sparrow arrogance,” Clive Barnes wrote in his review in The New York Times, “that mixture of both confidence and certainty that seemed perfectly right.”

At the opening of “Playboy,” the Clancy Boys, a popular Irish singing group that Mr. Birney had befriended at a Manhattan bar, sat in the front r
“They had their Irish sweaters on,” Ms. Roberge said in a phone interview, “and their arms crossed as if to say, Come on, show us what you’ve got.”

Over the rest of his theatrical career, Mr. Birney played a wide variety of roles, including Antonio Salieri, as a replacement, in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” on Broadway; Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing” at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J.; Hamlet at the PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria, Calif.; and James Tyrone Jr. in Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” at the Miniature Theater of Chester, Mass.

He also adapted some of Mark Twain’s short stories into a play, “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” which he often performed and directed. In 1989, he starred in one of the productions, with Ms. Baxter, for American Playhouse on PBS.

The couple divorced that year. In 2011, she wrote in her book, “Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame and Floundering,” that Mr. Birney had been abusive during their marriage. He denied her accusation, calling it an “appalling abuse of the truth.”

One of Mr. Birney’s biggest successes on television was a starring role as a doctor in the first season of the medical dramedy “St. Elsewhere.” But as the second season approached, he left the series because of his commitment on Broadway to “Amadeus.”

He continued to work in television through 2007, when he was a guest on the police procedural “Without a Trace.”

In addition to Ms. Roberge, Mr. Birney is survived by his children with Ms. Baxter, his daughters Kate and Mollie Birney and a son, Peter Baxter; a stepdaughter, Eva Bush, and a stepson, Ted Bush, Ms. Baxter’s children from a previous marriage; two grandchildren; and his brothers, Glenn and Gregory. Another marriage, to Mary Concannon, also ended in divorce.

Dude111 · 05-03-2022, 02:01 AM

Very sad buddy!!!!!

AB · 05-03-2022, 06:34 PM

Rest in peace. I liked him in Bridget Loves Bernie.

80sTrivia · 05-04-2022, 08:57 PM

So sad to hear of David's passing...

Bonniegirl · 05-04-2022, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AB

Rest in peace. I liked him in Bridget Loves Bernie.

Me too !! I loved that show !!

And the chemistry between David and Meredith who really were in love in real life and got married!!

I was so excited to find the whole series on DVD from Ebay ! Enjoying the show now just as much or if not more than when I was a little girl!

Sad to hear of his passing !

Rest in peace, David !

ThisLittlePiggy · 05-06-2022, 04:39 PM

I loved this show.

Sgt. Saunders · 05-06-2022, 05:10 PM

I remember David Birney and his then-wife Meredith Baxter-Birney on the winsome 1970s sit-com, “Bridget Loves Birney.” The show featured such wonderful supporting actors as Harold J. Stone, David Doyle, Audra Lindley and the affable Ned Glass. It’s too bad the show only lasted for one season due to the puzzling controversy regarding this light-hearted and entirely harmless show.

I also read Meredith Baxter-Birney’s autobiography several years ago. She was not very complimentary towards her ex-husband. I wonder if Ms. Baxter-Birney attended her ex-husband’s funeral service?

Mr. Television · 05-06-2022, 08:10 PM

R.I.P. David. I never saw this show though I always wanted to.

Bonniegirl · 05-06-2022, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Television

R.I.P. David. I never saw this show though I always wanted to.

If you get a chance , check it out on Crackle , my friend a frequent poster here on S.O. , Opus told me episodes of B loves B are there !

And as per my other post, it is on DVD too. I got mine on EBay ! A wonderful, funny, cute, romantic show, a treasure !

I think you would enjoy it !

Mr. Television · 05-07-2022, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bonniegirl

If you get a chance , check it out on Crackle , my friend a frequent poster here on S.O. , Opus told me episodes of B loves B are there !

And as per my other post, it is on DVD too. I got mine on EBay ! A wonderful, funny, cute, romantic show, a treasure !

I think you would enjoy it !

Thanks Bonnie. I just checked and my cable shows crackle and BLB is up there.

05-02-2022, 09:35 PM	#1
Zoneboy RIP, I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU :( Moderator Forum Superstar Join Date: Jul 13, 2003 Location: AT HOME WISHING ALL THIS WAS JUST A DREAM AND THAT I'LL WAKE UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE. Posts: 34,338	Actor David Birney (1939-2022) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/a...rney-dead.html David Birney, a classically trained theater actor who found success on the stage, including on Broadway, but who was best known for his role in “Bridget Loves Bernie” — a short-lived sitcom about an interfaith marriage in which he starred opposite his future wife, Meredith Baxter — died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 83. The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, said Michele Roberge, who said she was his life partner. Mr. Birney had been in a handful of television series and movies when he was cast in 1972 as Bernie Steinberg, a Jewish taxicab driver and struggling writer. Ms. Baxter played Bridget Fitzgerald, a schoolteacher from a wealthy Roman Catholic family. “This is not a message show,” Mr. Birney, who was Irish American, said during an interview with The Kansas City Star before the series’s debut. “It’s not even an idea show.” CBS gave it a plum time slot between “All in the Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” on Saturday night; it consistently finished among the top 10 programs in prime time and was the highest rated new series of the 1972-73 season. But it attracted criticism from a broad spectrum of Jewish groups, which objected chiefly to its treatment of intermarriage between Jews and Christians as a positive outcome and complained that it used Jewish stereotypes. CBS publicly played down the criticism but, without an explanation, canceled “Bridget Loves Bernie” after 24 episodes. “One segment of the protesters is truly concerned about the dilution of their faith,” Mr. Birney told The Daily News several months after the cancellation. “But intermarriage is on the rise, nevertheless. The threat doesn’t come from a harmless show such as ours, but from within.” Mr. Birney and Ms. Baxter married in 1974. In 1976, Mr. Birney received acclaim for playing John Quincy Adams in the public television production of “The Adams Chronicles.” Later that year, he was hired to play Frank Serpico, the corruption-fighting New York City detective, in an NBC series adapted from the Sidney Lumet movie “Serpico” (1973), which had earned Al Pacino an Oscar nomination for best actor. Mr. Birney was cast in the role on the strength of his work playing an officer in two episodes of “Police Story,” another NBC series. But “Serpico” was canceled after less than a full season. David Edwin Birney was born on April 23, 1939, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Cleveland. His father, Edwin, was an F.B.I. agent, and his mother, Jeanne (McGee) Birney, was a homemaker and later a real estate agent. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in 1961, Mr. Birney turned down a scholarship from Stanford Law School and instead chose to study theater arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received a master’s degree a year later. In the Army, he was part of a program called the Showmobile, which entertained at military bases in the United States. Mr. Birney’s theater career began in earnest in 1965, when he won the Barter Theater Award, enabling him to spend a season acting in shows at the prestigious Barter Theater in Abingdon, Va. He moved on to the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut, and in 1967 he played Antipholus of Syracuse in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of “A Comedy of Errors.” Mr. Birney made his Broadway debut two years later in Molière’s “The Miser.” And in 1971 he starred in a Broadway production of J.M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. Mr. Birney played Christy Mahon, who enters an Irish pub in the early 1900s telling a story about killing his father. “Mr. Birney had a **** sparrow arrogance,” Clive Barnes wrote in his review in The New York Times, “that mixture of both confidence and certainty that seemed perfectly right.” At the opening of “Playboy,” the Clancy Boys, a popular Irish singing group that Mr. Birney had befriended at a Manhattan bar, sat in the front r “They had their Irish sweaters on,” Ms. Roberge said in a phone interview, “and their arms crossed as if to say, Come on, show us what you’ve got.” Over the rest of his theatrical career, Mr. Birney played a wide variety of roles, including Antonio Salieri, as a replacement, in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” on Broadway; Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing” at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J.; Hamlet at the PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria, Calif.; and James Tyrone Jr. in Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” at the Miniature Theater of Chester, Mass. He also adapted some of Mark Twain’s short stories into a play, “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” which he often performed and directed. In 1989, he starred in one of the productions, with Ms. Baxter, for American Playhouse on PBS. The couple divorced that year. In 2011, she wrote in her book, “Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame and Floundering,” that Mr. Birney had been abusive during their marriage. He denied her accusation, calling it an “appalling abuse of the truth.” One of Mr. Birney’s biggest successes on television was a starring role as a doctor in the first season of the medical dramedy “St. Elsewhere.” But as the second season approached, he left the series because of his commitment on Broadway to “Amadeus.” He continued to work in television through 2007, when he was a guest on the police procedural “Without a Trace.” In addition to Ms. Roberge, Mr. Birney is survived by his children with Ms. Baxter, his daughters Kate and Mollie Birney and a son, Peter Baxter; a stepdaughter, Eva Bush, and a stepson, Ted Bush, Ms. Baxter’s children from a previous marriage; two grandchildren; and his brothers, Glenn and Gregory. Another marriage, to Mary Concannon, also ended in divorce.

05-04-2022, 08:57 PM	#4
80sTrivia Member Forum Celebrity Join Date: May 23, 2002 Posts: 21,715	So sad to hear of David's passing...
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05-06-2022, 08:10 PM	#8
Mr. Television 22 Years at Sitcoms Online Forum Icon Join Date: Jun 06, 2003 Location: Somewhere you're Not Posts: 62,125	R.I.P. David. I never saw this show though I always wanted to.
	__________________ Sonny

05-03-2022, 02:01 AM	#2
Dude111 Forum Legend Join Date: Nov 05, 2013 Posts: 35,423	Very sad buddy!!!!!

05-03-2022, 06:34 PM	#3
AB Member Eternal Member Forum Icon Join Date: Dec 26, 2006 Location: The South Posts: 59,426	Rest in peace. I liked him in Bridget Loves Bernie.

05-06-2022, 04:39 PM	#6
ThisLittlePiggy Member Forum Junkie Join Date: Nov 02, 2013 Posts: 83,252	I loved this show.

05-06-2022, 05:10 PM	#7
Sgt. Saunders Member Forum Regular Join Date: Nov 27, 2021 Location: The Garden State Posts: 540	I remember David Birney and his then-wife Meredith Baxter-Birney on the winsome 1970s sit-com, “Bridget Loves Birney.” The show featured such wonderful supporting actors as Harold J. Stone, David Doyle, Audra Lindley and the affable Ned Glass. It’s too bad the show only lasted for one season due to the puzzling controversy regarding this light-hearted and entirely harmless show. I also read Meredith Baxter-Birney’s autobiography several years ago. She was not very complimentary towards her ex-husband. I wonder if Ms. Baxter-Birney attended her ex-husband’s funeral service?