Trivia: The daughter of actress Whitney Blake, Meredith Baxter received extensive training in the arts at the Interlochen Summer Camp in Michigan. Meredith worked as an usher, file clerk and cafeteria checker before getting her first film break in Ben (1971). The 5'7" blonde actress entered the "America's sweetheart" category when she was cast as Bridget Fitzgerald Steinberg, the prettier half of a Catholic-Jewish married couple, in the TV sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie (1972). While the series lasted only a year, her "reel" marriage became a "real" one when, in 1974, she wed her B Loves B co-star David Birney. In addition to yielding a new, hyphenated professional name for Meredith, her union with Birney produced three children before the couple divorced in the early 1990s (she also had two children from a previous marriage). In between stage appearances in such productions as Hamlet, Guys and Dolls and Butterflies are Free, Meredith played Nancy Lawrence Maitland on the TV dramedy Family, winning two Emmy nominations during her four-year (1976-80) stint with this series. In 1982, Meredith agreed to star as flower child-turned-suburban mom Elyse Keaton on the weekly TV comedy Family Ties, having been assured that she would be the star of the series in fact as well as in name. As it happened, Family Ties was dominated throughout its seven-year run by co-star Michael J. Fox. A prolific TV-movie actress, she owns the distinction of playing the same real-life character twice, with two entirely different interpretations. When she first played accused murderess Betty Broderick in 1992's A Woman Scorned, Meredith was sympathetic to Broderick's plight, and played the role accordingly (earning an Emmy nomination in the process); but by the time 1993's Her Final Fury rolled around, Meredith, like everyone else involved in the project, was convinced that Betty Broderick deserved what she got--and played the role in the manner of a Gothic Novel villainess. A made-for-TV movie fixture over the course of the next decade, Baxter remained a familiar face on the small screen thanks to appearances in such popular shows as The Closer and Cold Case, later showing her playful side with voice work in such animated series' as Family Guy and Dan Vs. A breast-cancer survivor, she received a public-awareness award from the National Breast Cancer Coalition for starring in and coproducing the 1994 drama My Breast.

Trivia: Tina Yothers rose to child stardom as Jennifer, the second-oldest child of the Keaton family, on Gary David Goldberg's quintessential '80s sitcom Family Ties (opposite Michael J. Fox, Meredith Baxter-Birney, and others). An actress from age three, born into a showbusiness family, Yothers signed one of her first major parts in 1981, shortly before the seven-year Family Ties assignment, when Alan Parker and co. tapped her to play the daughter of Albert Finney and Diane Keaton in his gut-wrenching treatment of a contemporary divorce, Shoot the Moon (1982). Yothers' post-Ties career placed its strongest emphasis on telemovies, such as Laker Girls (1990) and A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester (1995), and she achieved a colorful bit of recognition by playing scandal queen Tonya Harding in the TV movie Spunk: The Tonya Harding Story (1993). Though she would make a smattering of guest appearances on various TV shows, she didn't return to the screen in any regular capacity until she signed on for the fourth season of Celebrity Fit Club.