Meredith Baxter

Meredith Baxter is an American actress best known for playing Elyse Keaton -- the liberal, understanding mother -- on Family Ties (1982), following earlier roles on Bridget Loves Bernie (1972) and Family (1976), the latter earning her two Emmy nominations. She won further acclaim for the TV film Kate's Secret (1986), about a woman secretly struggling with bulimia, and was Emmy-nominated again for A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story (1992). Baxter was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 and made a full recovery, later creating a skincare line whose proceeds fund breast cancer research. She came out as lesbian in a 2009 Today show interview, speaking about her relationship of several years with Nancy Locke, whom she married in 2013. Baxter had been married to men three times previously and spoke about the journey of understanding and accepting her own sexuality relatively late in life.