Birney’s nearly-40 year television career began with a part in the 1969 series “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” all the way through to a guest appearance in “Without a Trace” in 2007. He also had roles and recurring spots on many classic TV shows, including “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Love Boat” and “Hawaii Five-0.”
“Why does everybody want to know if I’m Jewish?” Birney told The Times in 1972. “I really find it offensive, because I don’t know whether they’re asking about my religion or my background. Actually, I’m an Irish Protestant, but I have no organized religious affiliation. And religion is much too serious a thing to talk about. After all, we’re all actors, and nobody asks if it’s difficult being Protestant and playing Macbeth, or being Jewish and playing Irish.
Birney was also active in the theater community for most of his life, including a 1969 Broadway debut in “The Miser” and a role in the 1971 Broadway production of “The Playboy of the Western World.” Throughout his career, he had numerous roles in theatrical productions all across the United States, from Chester, Mass., to Santa Maria, Calif.
“Listen, I’m a good actor,” Birney told The Times in 1972. “I only took the TV series because the options for actors get fewer and fewer. I came in in the mid‐sixties when British actors dominated the American theater, and for an actor wanting to do Shakespeare, you had to steal those parts around the country by hook or by crook. I’m very fortunate to have been almost steadily employed, but I haven’t always done what I’ve wanted to do.
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