Meredith Baxter to Write Memoir Detailing Her Life

Meredith Baxter, an acclaimed television, film, and stage actress, producer, and advocate for women’s rights and breast cancer research who recently came out as a lesbian, has reached agreement with Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, to write a candid and revealing memoir of her eventful personal and professional life.

In her book, Ms. Baxter will present a fully realized portrait of her life as an actress, mother of five children, and grandmother, and will candidly discuss her fight with breast cancer, her 19 years of sobriety, entrepreneurship, and her decision to come out.  A publication date for the book, which is as yet untitled, has not been announced.

Noted for her accessible portrayals of intelligent, independent women who struggle with the challenges before them, Ms. Baxter achieved early success in her career with a string of television hits, including the CBS situation comedy Bridget Loves Bernie; the critically acclaimed ABC drama Family, for which she received an Emmy nomination; and, most notably, the long-running and perennially popular NBC sitcom Family Ties, in which she starred in the role of Elyse Keaton.

Following Family Ties, Ms. Baxter made a seamless transition to drama, quickly establishing herself as one of the most sought-after actors for television movies.  In 1991, she received an Emmy nomination for her performance as the lead character in A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story.  In 1994, she garnered a Daytime Emmy nomination for her role as a lesbian mother raising a young son in the CBS Schoolbreak Special, Other Mothers.  She also received a special award for public awareness from the National Breast Cancer Coalition for her work on the television film, My Breast (1994), a black comedy about the true story of journalist Joyce Wadler’s successful battle with breast cancer.

A force behind the camera as well, Ms. Baxter has co-executive produced a number of her movies for television, including My Breast, Betrayed: The Story of Three Women, Darkness Before Dawn, and The Long Journey Home.  She also executive-produced her most recent television series, The Faculty for ABC.

Ms. Baxter, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, is a champion of women’s rights who devotes much of her time to speaking out on issues about which she is passionate.  She donates a portion of the profits from sales of her line of skin care products, meredithbaxtersimpleworks.com, to the Meredith Baxter Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, which funds prevention and research as well as free mammograms for low-income women.