Meredith Ann Baxter was born into the world of entertainment on June 21, 1947, in South Pasadena, California. As the daughter of actress, director, and producer Whitney Blake and radio announcer Tom Baxter, she seemed destined for a life in front of the camera, though her early years were far from stable.
Leggi tutto: Tribute to Meredith Baxter | Most iconic sensual roles and tickling scenes
After her parents divorced in 1953, she and her brothers were raised in Pasadena by their mother, who later married situation comedy writer Allan Manings. Growing up, she carried deep self-esteem issues and struggled with a persistent sense of abandonment, feeling shut out by a mother who prioritized her own dreams of Hollywood stardom. In school, so desperate was she to feel accepted and popular that she even fabricated a claim that the famous Oscar-winning actress Anne Baxter was her mother. Despite attending Hollywood High School and the Interlochen Center for the Arts as a voice major, she remained deeply insecure, later describing herself as a clueless whimp who did not recognize her own physical appeal or raw acting talent.
Her Hollywood career essentially fell into her lap rather than being the product of years of intense study and ambition. Despite this, her natural talent was undeniable, and she quickly secured television appearances in the early 1970s, including a starring role in the sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie where she met her second husband, David Birney. It was in 1976 that she achieved her first massive critical milestone on the drama series Family. Playing Nancy Lawrence Maitland, she captured the hearts of audiences and critics alike, earning two consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations in 1977 and 1978 for her outstanding supporting work. This enormous success paved the way for her most famous role of all in 1982, when she was cast as the beloved flower-child matriarch Elyse Keaton on the hit NBC sitcom Family Ties. Alongside Michael Gross and Michael J. Fox, she became the defining, liberal-minded television mother of a generation, establishing a wholesome, dependable image in the minds of millions.

Yet, behind the bright lights of sitcom fame, her private life was a storm of immense personal challenges. For years, she coped with unhappy, self-destructive, and highly volatile relationships, particularly alleging that she endured physical and emotional abuse at the hands of David Birney, a charge he vehemently denied. To block out the pain, she turned heavily to alcohol, initiating a severe battle with alcoholism from which she eventually recovered. Her resilience was tested once again in 1999 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, though she ultimately made a full recovery after undergoing successful treatment. Throughout these trials, she also grappled with her identity, eventually realizing that she was a lesbian. In December 2009, after online and supermarket tabloids threatened to out her following a lesbian-themed cruise, she took control of her own narrative by coming out publicly in a television interview with Matt Lauer. She later found lasting happiness with building contractor Nancy Locke, whom she married in Los Angeles in December 2013.
She laid bare all of these struggles in her deeply personal and cathartic memoir, Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering, which was published in 2011 and quickly rose to become a New York Times bestseller. Rather than focusing purely on her sexuality, the book served as a raw, vulnerable examination of her childhood struggles, her abusive marriages, her recovery from addiction, and her journey of self-discovery. It was an act of profound honesty that allowed her to find her own voice and heal from the wounds of her past.
Meredith Baxter’s sexy scenes
Among her many dramatic achievements, her role in the 1994 television film My Breast, which she also co-executive produced, stands out as an act of immense courage and public service. Playing the role of journalist Joyce Wadler, a woman dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis, she decided that the most powerful way to promote public awareness and demonstrate proper medical exams was to expose her breasts on regular broadcast television.
The scene begins with her performing a brief striptease before undergoing a breast examination. What made this moment iconic was her absolute refusal to use a body double. She believed that to tell a story about the “whole woman,” she needed to show her own body. Furthermore, she insisted that the hands performing the clinical breast exam in the close-up belong to an actual, real-life physician rather than an actor. When the film aired on CBS, it created a significant hubbub because explicit nudity was generally forbidden on broadcast TV. However, the network permitted it because of the essential medical context and educational value, and the broadcast ultimately helped save lives by encouraging women to perform self-exams and get checked.



This memorable scene in My Breast remains the one and only time she ever performed nude or topless on screen. Believing that her body should only be shown for a deeply meaningful cause, she chose to keep her wholesome image intact for the rest of her career, leaving this single, powerful performance as a testament to her dedication to women’s health.




Tickling scene with Meredith Baxter
In “Family,” Baxter’s character tries to read a book while a boy teases her by touching her feet. When he starts to distract her by tickling her, she says she isn’t ticklish—only to burst out laughing shortly afterward.

























