David Birney, a classically trained theater actor who found success on the stage, including on Broadway, but who was best known for his role in “Bridget Loves Bernie” — a short-lived sitcom about an interfaith marriage in which he starred opposite his future wife, Meredith Baxter.
Birney was born in Washington, D.C., the first child of Jeanne (née McGee) and Edwin B. Birney, a special agent for the FBI. He attended schools in Brooklyn, Ohio, and graduated from West High School in Cleveland.
In the December 2017 edition of the Wide Wide World newsletter for Dartmouth College class of 1961 alumni, it was disclosed that Birney had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He died on April 29, 2022, at his home in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 83.
David didn’t only work on screen. He also starred in several theater productions, among them the leading role in Ron Cowen’s play Summertree, as a soldier who is killed in Vietnam. That led to him getting the Theater World and Clarence Derwent Award in 1968.