David Birney, star of TV’s “Bridget Enjoys Bernie” and “St. Elsewhere” and Broadway’s “Amadeus,” died Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. after a 5-yr battle with Alzheimer’s condition. He was 83.
The veteran actor’s passing was confirmed by “life partner” Michele Roberge, the New York Moments reported.
Birney initially gained mainstream fame in 1972 reverse his foreseeable future wife Meredith Baxter in the CBS sitcom “Bridget Loves Bernie.” The clearly show was well-liked — slotted involving rankings juggernauts “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “All in the Spouse and children — but small-lived thanks to controversial protests by Jewish groups who disagreed with the “intermarriage” of Birney’s Jewish cabbie character, Bernie Steinberg, and Baxter’s Bridget Fitzgerald, a Catholic grade faculty instructor from a wealthy loved ones.
Both equally divorced at the time, Birney and the futxure “Family Ties” matriarch, who experienced two youngsters from her to start with relationship, got hitched for actual in 1974. The pair experienced a few children of their own just before obtaining divorced in 1989.
Baxter afterwards claimed that Birney was emotionally and bodily abusive in her bombshell 2011 book “Untied: A Memoir of Loved ones, Fame, and Floundering.” He vehemently denied her claims, deeming them an “appalling abuse of the truth of the matter.”
The son of an FBI agent, Birney was born on April 23, 1939, and lifted in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Dartmouth University with a diploma in English literature in 1961, then earned his master’s in theater from UCLA, Range described. Right after a tour in the US Army and a calendar year with the Barter Theatre in Virginia, Birney made his New York theater debut in 1967’s “The Comedy of Faults,” “King John” and “Titus Andronicus” at the Shakespeare Festival for Joseph Papp.
“I only took the Tv set collection since the possibilities for actors get less and less,” he advised the Occasions at the top of his new Television set fame in 1972. “I arrived in in the mid-’60s when British actors dominated the American theater, and for an actor wanting to do Shakespeare you had to steal these parts all-around the place by hook or by criminal. I’m extremely privileged to have been virtually steadily utilized, but I haven’t usually performed what I’ve required to do … I’ll go anyplace at any time to do Romeo — you can print that.”
Following the aborted accomplishment of “Bridget Loves Bernie,” Birney attained acclaim for participating in John Quincy Adams in the 1976 PBS output of “The Adams Chronicles.” The very same yr, he assumed the function of NYC detective Frank Serpico in an NBC series adapted from Sidney Lumet’s 1973 movie “Serpico” (1973), which gained Al Pacino an Oscar nod for finest actor as the title character.
In the ensuing a long time, he was a common facial area on television and the stage, with a standout function as Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s Tony-successful “Amadeus” on Broadway. He was also in the first cast of NBC’s classic clinical comedy-drama, “St. Elsewhere,” in 1982 and 1983, but remaining the hit demonstrate to go after his portion in “Amadeus.”
He also provided the voice of Anakin Skywalker in the NPR radio dramatization of “Return of the Jedi” in 1996. His ultimate credited function was a visitor location on the CBS law enforcement procedural drama “Without a Trace” in 2007.
In addition to his career achievements, Birney chaired the American Diabetic issues Association for five many years and served on the Dartmouth College or university Board of Overseers for the Hopkins Middle for the Accomplishing Arts, in accordance to his formal IMDB bio.
Birney is survived by his little ones with Baxter — daughters Kate and Mollie Birney and a son, Peter Baxter — as perfectly as a stepdaughter, Eva Bush, and a stepson, Ted Bush, Baxter’s children from a previous relationship. He also experienced two grandchildren and his brothers, Glenn and Gregory.
0 Commentaires