How Melissa Fumero's Husband Convinced Her to Play Birdie on Grosse Pointe
The Grosse Pointe Garden Society actress was initially intimidated by the role in the murder mystery dramedy.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society star Melissa Fumero (Birdie) truly hit the jackpot when she landed her first TV role on One Life to Live. Not only did the gig launch her career, it also led to her meeting her husband, David Fumero. In fact, it was David who ultimately convinced her to take on the role of the "complex" Birdie.
The actress shines in the premiere as the bestselling author and divorcé who drunkenly crashes her car into the town's fountain. Birdie is witty and confident, but also vulnerable and actively masking trauma, revealing she got pregnant and gave up her baby for adoption at 16. It's a fine line between dark drama and comedy, which initially intimidated Fumero.
At first, the 42-year-old auditioned for another character on the series, confessing to NBC Insider, "I was really scared of Birdie... She felt very far from me, so I just couldn't figure it out.”
That's when her partner of 18 years stepped in.
"My husband actually helped me and then it kind of opened for me," she said. "I was being really dramatic, as we do, and I was like, 'I don't think I can play this role. It's just gonna feel really fake and false.' And then he reminded me of this character I played years and years and years ago — and a [project] that nobody saw. And he was like, 'Well she's kind of like that, why don't you start there? And it was like 'Bing!' like a lightbulb... he kind of opened it up and then I kind of figured out my way, and without it feeling cartoony."
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The Fumeros are the proud parents of two gorgeous boys, and both are still working actors. Read all about their family, here.
Melissa Fumero met her husband David at her first acting job
Just hours after completing her final test as a student as New York University, aspiring actress Melissa Gallo was offered the role of Adriana Cramer on One Life To Live. On set, she met Cuban American actor David Fumero, who played Christian Vega. Though she wasn't interested in dating actors at the time, as she later told Steve Harvey, they ended up going out, and on one of their early dates, David Fumero mentioned that he'd been in a Mariah Carey video.
Taken aback, the actress suddenly realized that the man she was seeing, who began his career as a model, was her teenage crush: the man from Carey's "Honey" video. And the rest, as they say, is history. The pair got engaged over the Christmas holiday in 2006 and wed a year later in December 2007.
Yes, Melissa Fumero's husband played the puzzle guy on Brooklyn Nine-Nine
In Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 5, Episode 15 ("The Puzzle Master"), Detective Amy Santiago (Fumero) meets her crossword creator idol, Melvin Stermley. Though her co-worker and boyfriend Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) assumes, based on his name and job title, that Stermley will be an unattractive nerd, he turns out to be charismatic and hunky. And played by David, to the delight of B99 fans.
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In March 2016, she revealed that she'd given birth to a baby boy, Enzo, and in November 2019 announced that the pair were expecting again. Their son Axel arrived on Valentine's Day 2020.
"It’s totally weird to me that I’m a mom. AND that I get to be mom to these cute AF little boys who have totally stolen my heart. It’s all just beautifully insane," Fumero reflected on Instagram after becoming a mom of two. The family adopted a puppy, Rosie, in 2023.
Catch Fumero in Grosse Pointe Garden Society every Sunday at 10/9c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
