Posted on 05/03/2022 3:49:31 PM PDT by nickcarraway
David Birney, star of TV’s “Bridget Loves Bernie” and “St. Elsewhere” and Broadway’s “Amadeus,” died Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., after a five-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 83.
The veteran actor’s passing was confirmed by “life partner” Michele Roberge, the New York Times reported.
Birney first gained mainstream fame in 1972 opposite his future wife Meredith Baxter in the CBS sitcom “Bridget Loves Bernie.” The show was popular — slotted between ratings juggernauts “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “All in the Family — but short-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 school teacher from a wealthy family.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
“I couldn’t stand any of the Norman Lear show about white people. The ones about black people weren’t as bad.”
I noticed that too. Although Lear didn’t have much to do with Sanford and Son.
Punch him in the face, but you better hang his coat on a wooden hangar. I couldn’t stand his annoying secretary Roz, or the office gofer Benny either. In fact, most of that law office was kind of annoying.
RIP, David Birney. I remember when “Bridget Loves Bernie” was controversial.
That's probably why it wasn't as bad. And remember Demond Wilson was the one man who stood up to King Lear.
I always thought the show was sending up the liberal, uber-feminist type. Her husband, daughter, maid, friends next door and others dinged her constantly.
Maude = man
I never thought that when I saw her
I always thought bitter p1ssed off woman, all the time
So much for the idiots who claim that gays born that way.
How bad does a guy have to be at sex to turn a beautiful blonde into a bull dyke lesbian?
OTOH, Adrienne was well-cast in Cannonball Run. But yeah, there was nothing redeeming about Maude. Bea Arthur was always best in very small doses (History of the World: Part I).
Shirley Jones was not only an excellent actress, but starred in top tier Rogers and Hammerstein musicals “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel” as well as the leading lady in “The Music Man”.
Young men and boys may have drooled over Marilyn Monroe, but Shirley Jones was the one you wanted to actually marry.
Plus, she could really act, and really, really sing.
For Miss Barbeau to compare herself to the incomparable Shirley Jones was a bad joke. Yes, “Cannonball Run” and “Maude” were about her level. True, “The Partridge Family” isn’t exactly high art, but Shirley Jones at least had the lead, and helped launch her talented son’s career.
Great show and matching theme.
I remember liking Bridget Loves Bernie, but that is all I remember about it.
Shirley Jones was always my favorite actress.
Really? And she married Jack Cassidy, and wasn't he a raging jerk?
A lot of the time the nice girls marry the jerks. Jack Cassidy was always a convincing murderer in Columbo.
A fellow might not want to marry the Elmer Gantry version of Shirley Jones, either.
Yes, he was pretty good.
Smoking killed him.
Cassidy had psychiatric problems, back before terms like "bipolar" had been coined. Like many such people back then, he self-medicated with alcohol. I'm not sure if the "jerk" part was on top of those other problems, or because of them.
Adrienne’s niche finally settled into horror flicks like “The Fog” and “Creepshow”. To make that boast to Shirley Jones (kinda strange, too - they weren’t directly competing for parts that I know of), I guess she felt assured of her own casting couch skills.
Meredith Baxter was a hottie.
3 husbands and 1 er... wife and 5 kids.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa, there Sam! Lulu Bains was all that and more. Soft, curvy, sensual made Marilyn Monroe jealous!
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