The Lesbian and the Alleged Wife-Beater

I took a bit of a hiatus from buying DVDs--I don't stream or download many videos because I like having tangible media--but I capitulated when I recently got a DVD set of the 1972-1973 sitcom, Bridget Loves Bernie.  I never saw it when it first aired beyond the opening credits which featured the stars--and later married and divorced couple--Meredith Baxter and David Birney gallivanting around NYC.  The only reason I saw the opening credits was because the show aired between the CBS seventies powerhouses All in the Family (which I saw every first-run episode when it aired) and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, a show I watched much of during its original run, but I didn't watch it regularly like I did the other show (I have both series on DVD).  Anyway, Bridget Loves Bernie had high ratings thanks to its schedule, but it was canceled after one season as a number of Jewish groups were not happy with the premise of a Catholic teacher (Baxter) marrying a Jewish cab driver and budding playwright (Birney).  In real life, neither of the leads was Catholic or Jewish.  Considering the 1970s were just a mere three decades after World War II and the Holocaust, it was little wonder why the groups were upset.  They had concerns over the show sending the wrong message about interfaith marriage.

Sometimes, though, the opposition went overboard in its criticism of the series.  Baxter remembered at one point there were bomb threats made.  CBS ultimately capitulated to the pressure and canceled the show after one season.

In truth, the groups should have been more upset over the rather mediocre scripts.  The series was clearly based on an old, old play called Abie's Irish Rose, and it had its share of silly stereotypes and mundane plots.    Despite the attractiveness of the leads and the support of actors like Audra Lindley and Harold J. Stone (the latter seen on practically every television series during the first two decades of the medium), the scripts still stunk.

Yours truly is wading through the series.  I have to admit the DVD quality is excellent, mastered from the original 35mm source elements,  so it looks as good or better than when it was made.    Even so, it is hard to get through it.

It is also hard to watch Baxter and Birney hanging all over each other--which was frankly overkill--knowing what ultimately happened.  Baxter came from a showbiz family with her mother, Whitney Blake, looking like a beauty pageant contestant.  Blake was best known for her work on the sixties sitcom, Hazel,  and with her last husband helped create the seventies sitcom One Day at a Time.  As for daughter Meredith, she was and would remain an attractive woman, but she wasn't the beauty her mother was.  However, she did follow her mother into acting.  Baxter already had a marriage, a divorce,  and two kids under her belt by the time she met David Birney on the set of Bridget Loves Bernie (I remembered Birney from his work on the soap, Love is a Many Splendored Thing).  A year or so after the series bit the dust, Baxter and Birney got married.  They had three kids together.  The marriage endured for fifteen years until they divorced in around 1989.

After the series bombed, Baxter went on to successes in television series such as Family Ties and Family.  She won acclaim for portraying sociopathic murderer Betty Broderick, whom she resembled,  in a TV movie.  Birney led mostly a low-key existence being more involved in live theater and such.

I haven't read Baxter's memoirs, but from what I have read about them, she alleged Birney beat her up despite his being on the short side (I couldn't believe how short he was when I saw him on the series--he stood only 5 feet, 7 inches, the same height as Baxter).  It was a hellish existence if her account is true, but Birney has long denied it.  I think we can say the divorce wasn't amicable.

As we know, Baxter got to the point where she gave up on men altogether and discovered after decades she was more attracted to women.  Three divorces and five children later, she married a contractor named Nancy Locke and presumably she is content now.

Because of the lame scripts and the real-life soap opera extending for decades after the series ended, it is hard to sit through Bridget Loves Bernie.  Finally, the premise for the series was dated in 1972, and it is even more dated now.

As noted here, the hit series M*A*S*H* took over the time slot the next season.  After Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show completed the lineup, perhaps the strongest primeline lineup in television history.  M*A*S*H* was replaced by the equally strong The Jeffersons.  It was worth breaking dates on Saturday night to stay home.