Baxter - Untied: a memoir of family, fame, and floundering

Copyright 2011 by Meredith Baxter

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

All photos from the Meredith Baxter Collection unless otherwise credited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-307-71932-4

Front jacket photograph: Marc Royce

v3.1

To Allan Manings

I have told the truth about my story as best I can recall and up to a point. There are a few names I have changed to ensure privacy. There are some incidents that have been truncated or eliminated because full disclosure is often tedious, dreary, and redundant.

A few of my children posited their opinion that for me to write about my life automatically meant I was writing about theirs, which I think they experienced as a form of trespass. So, although our lives are inextricably linked, I tried to limit telling my childrens stories because, after all, those stories are not mine to tell. In truth, I felt awkward even writing about their feelings or perceptions, believing it was not my right to represent them with any particular slant. Consequently in this book, for the most part, Ive avoided talking much about them at all, which belies that they were and are the center of my life; they have taught me great love, patience, and compassion, which have shaped me in the richest ways.

O n the night of November 31, 2009, I was sitting in the bathtub at the Four Seasons Hotel in midtown Manhattan, having a meltdown. The following morning I was supposed to go on the Today Show so I could come out on national television. Even my partner of four years, Nancy Locke, was concerned for me. Would it look like a pathetic career move? Would it look like a desperate bid for attention? Were there factions in my family that didnt yet know? How would people in the industry look at me now? Would I look foolish? Would my waning career be perceived as going up in a small ignoble puff of smoke? I was fraught with uncertainty.

It was the offer of two free tickets to the Caribbean a few weeks earlier on the inaugural voyage of Sweet, a lesbian cruise line, which had culminated in my sitting in this now lukewarm tub in New York City. The web series I was appearing in, We Have to Stop Now, would be filming more episodes on the cruise; would I like to join them and film some added scenes? I was a little wary of being so exposed on a lesbian cruise, but it took very little discussion for Nancy and me to decide we really wanted to go. So I called the shows producers, took a deep breath, and said, Were in!

We departed out of New Orleans and headed to Mexico, sailing right into Hurricane Ida. Our huge ocean liner was tossed around like a Coke can and Nancy and I just held on to each other for dear life but we made it through to Belize City, then to Honduras, then back to Cozumel. We had so much fun. Nancy and I kept it low key, reading, sitting in the sun, enjoying the day trips, meeting new people. I knew that there was press on board as well as a lot of cameras, but except for the few scenes I had to do, we steered clear of them. On the last night of the seven-day cruise, we saw our amazingly funny friend, comic Suzanne Westenhoefer, perform. At the end of her act, she looked out into the crowd and, echoing the words of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, said, Come out. If youre not out, come out.

Okay that got me. I had been struggling with the idea for some time. I was on a lesbian cruise, but who was I really out to? I had been letting my friends and family know since 2003. But I wasnt out to the world; I always told myself I had too much at stake. At that moment, I looked at Nancy, my darling Nancy, who had been out for thirty years, and I just knew it was time.

That night, back in our cabin, I started flailing around for a plan. Id put an ad in the newspaper! I was thinking it should be modest, sort of like a birth announcement, and it could say something like, Hey Just thought Id let you know Im gay, (signed) Meredith Baxter.

We returned home to Los Angeles on Sunday, November 15. On Monday morning, I put a call into the office of my manager, Alan Iezman, to broach the idea of the coming-out process and what that might look like. Well, Alan had wanted to talk to me because hed already gotten some calls from National Enquirer, Star, and the celebrity gossip website PerezHilton. They all knew that I was on the cruise, and they had photographs of me and Nancy. No! This was my worst nightmare!

My manager suggested I talk to Howard Bragman, a well-known Hollywood publicist who specialized in guiding celebrities through the coming-out process. Howards first words were, Well, arent you full of surprises? Then he said, We have to take control of the story or you will have no say in it at all. He said, Well get you into People magazine and then well go to New York and youll do the Today Show. No! This was horrible! This was even worse than the Enquirer!

What? No ad? A major network? A major publication? No, no, no. This isnt warranted! This was way over the top. But Howard was already moving. First I have to see if the Today Show wants you. Fifteen minutes later, he called me back and said, The Today Show wants you and they want you next week, so we have to get People magazine over to your house within the next few days. I didnt have time to react. This was appalling butI just went on stunned autopilot. Okay. Okay.

Cut back to me crying and now shivering in the Four Seasons bathtub. Why am I doing this? Why should anybody have to do this? I just wailed. I was going to make a most personal announcement on national television and people were going to say, Her? Family Ties has been off the air for twenty years. Who cares?

Then Nancy came in and talked to me as I wept. Nancy talked about the shame she felt when she first came out, how she hid being gay from those around her because she was scared how they would react. She told me how comforting it would have been to her back then to see someone like me, a known actress, someone people seemed to like, coming forward and being open about who they were.

Ah. This could be helpful? This was being of service? As long as I kept a tight focus on the bigger picture, it made what was about to happen much more meaningful and relevant, almost spiritual. Research has shown that when people have a friend or someone in their family who is gay, they seem more open to gay issues. All right, I havent been in the limelight for a while, but people do still seem to respond to me. So maybe people will think, Oh, Meredith. I like her! Shes nonthreatening! Shes friendly! She talks to you! So, shes gay! She was the same as she was before we knew; nothing has changed.

And perhaps, the next time those people will go to vote, theyll think about me and other gay people they know, and perhaps they wont so quickly vote away gay marriage rights; maybe theyll vote with real equality in mind.