David Birney

David Edwin Birney (April 23, 1939 – April 27, 2022) was an American actor and director whose career included performances in both contemporary and classical roles in theatre, film, and television. He is noted for having played the title role in the television series Serpico. He also starred in Bridget Loves Bernie, an early 1970s TV series about an interfaith marriage that also starred Meredith Baxter (whom he married after the series ended). He also portrayed Dr. Ben Samuels in St. Elsewhere from 1982 until 1983. Early life Birney was born in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 1939. His father, Edwin, worked as a special agent for the FBI; his mother, Jeanne (McGee), was a housewife before becoming a real estate agent. Birney attended schools in Brooklyn, Ohio, and graduated from West High School in Cleveland. Named to the National Honor Society, he lettered in basketball, football, and track. He held a B.A. degree from Dartmouth College with "High Distinction" in English literature, English Honors. At the University of California, Los Angeles, Birney earned an M.A. in theatre arts, acting and directing, studying with Ralph Freud and William Melnitz. He held a teaching assistant fellowship and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Humanities from Southern Utah University. Stage While in the U.S. Army, Birney won an All Army Entertainment contest and received the "Barter Theatre Award" in 1965. Since the award was an equity contract with the Company for an entire season, he consequently spent the next season with the Barter Theatre, the State Theatre of Virginia, starring or appearing in fifteen shows, directing two others. In the following two years he went on to perform with a range of companies and productions, off-Broadway and in several regional repertory theatres. His New York debut was with Joe Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival as Antipholus of Syracuse in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. Birney worked continually in the theatre performing leading roles with some of the most important theatres in the country. His stage credits included starring roles on Broadway in Amadeus, Benefactors, and Man and Superman. He also had major roles at the American Shakespeare Festival, New York's Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre, the New York Shakespeare Festival, Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre, Princeton's McCarter Theatre, the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, and numerous regional theatres around the country.