Frank C. Baxter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Francis Condie Baxter (May 4, 1896 - January 18, 1982) was an American TV personality and educator. He was a professor of English at the University of Southern California. During the 1950s, his program Shakespeare on TV won seven Emmy Awards.
Born in Camden, New Jersey, Baxter is best remembered for his appearance as "Dr Research" in almost all of the "Bell Laboratory Science Series" of eight educational films that were produced for television in the late 1950s, and became a staple in classrooms from the '60s through the '80s. The Bell Laboratory Science Series combined scientific footage, live actors and animation to convey scientific concepts and history in a lively, entertaining way, and the bald, bespeckled and affable Dr. Baxter served as narrator, lecturer and Master of Ceremonies. The series included such titles as Our Mr. Sun (1956), Hemo the Magnificent (1957), Gateways to the Mind (1958), and The Alphabet Conspiracy (1959). These ubiquitous films made Dr. Baxter (who was not a scientist) something of a scientific icon among baby boomers.
Baxter also appeared (as himself) in a prologue to the 1956 film The Mole People, in which he gave a brief history of theories of life beneath the surface of the earth.
He made history when he won the first ever Golden Gavel award by Toastmasters International.
Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He died at age 85 in San Marino, California.
