Meredith Ann Baxter was born June 21, 1947 in South Pasadena, CA with performance genes. Her mother, Whitney Blake, was an actress; her father, Tom Baxter, a radio announcer.

A graduate of Hollywood High School, Baxter spent several summers at the arts-oriented Interlochen Summer Camp in Michigan. Then she paid her dues working as an usher, file clerk and in a cafeteria before getting her first film break with a 1971 role in "Ben," a movie in which the star was a rat. By then, she had already been married (to Robert Lewis bush) and divorced, and was the mother of two children.

In 1972, she was cast as Bridget Fitzgerald Steinberg, the Catholic half of a Catholic-Jewish couple, in "Bridget Loves Bernie." That led not only to national exposure, but her real-life marriage to co-star David Birney. For the next decade, she was credited under Meredith Baxter-Birney.

Her second major TV role came on "Family" (1976-80), which won her two Emmy awards (1977-78) for Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. After a season in "Vanities," an HBO series about a trio of Texas cheerleaders and their lives after high school, she got the part of former flower child Elyse Keaton in "Family Ties." Michael J. Fox, just 14 years younger, played her son. (Years later, she was once again Fox's mother in "Spin City."

"Family Ties" ended its run in 1989, as did Baxter's marriage to Birney. Following the lead of her mother, she moved into directing, then back into performing with a couple of daring projects, playing a lesbian mother in "Other Mothers" and doing "My Breast" as a public awareness spot about breast cancer (from which she is a survivor).

In recent years, Baxter has appeared on a number of commercials and guest spots on TV series, as well as developing her own cosmetics line. In 2009, she came out as having a same-sex partner, general contractor Nancy Locke, in an interview with Matt Lauer on "Today."