‘St. Elsewhere,’ ‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ actor David Birney dies at 83

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA — David Birney, a television and Broadway actor known for roles in “St. Elsewhere” and “Bridget Loves Bernie” died Friday in his Santa Monica, Calif. home at the age of 83, according to the New York Times. His life partner, Michele Roberge, told the New York Times that he died from Alzheimer’s disease. He is survived by his children, Kate, Mollie, and Peter.

Birney was born in 1939 and was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He went on to study at Dartmouth College with a degree in English literature before going to UCLA for his master’s in theater. Before he was able to get into theater, he was part of the U.S. Army for a short time.

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Birney was a classically trained theater actor who was on Broadway and in the New York Shakespeare Festival. He was in the short-lived sitcom, “Bridget Loves Bernie” where he played a Jewish taxicab driver who married a schoolteacher, his future wife, Meredith Baxter, from a wealthy Roman Catholic family, according to the New York Times. The show was one of the highest-rated new shows between 1972 and 1973. The show created a lot of criticism around interfaith marriage and CBS canceled the show without an explanation after 24 episodes.

“I only took the TV series because the options for actors get fewer and fewer,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “I came in in the mid-’60s when British actors dominated the American theater, and for an actor wanting to do Shakespeare you had to steal those parts around the country by hook or by crook. I’m very fortunate to have been almost steadily employed, but I haven’t always done what I’ve wanted to do.

Birney and Baxter were married in 1974. Baxter had two kids from a previous marriage and they had three kids of their own, according to the Hollywood Reporter. They ended up getting divorced in 1989.

Over the years, Birney was seen in a variety of theater productions and his biggest success was as a doctor on the first season of “St. Elsewhere” before he left to pursue a Broadway production, according to the New York Times.

He was also seen in 1998 on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and had his final onscreen appearance on “Without A Trace” in 2007, says the Hollywood Reporter.

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