Joe Don Baker

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Joe Don Baker
Baker as Jack Wade in GoldenEye
Born	February 12, 1936 (1936-02-12) (age 72) Groesbeck, Texas, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres (1969-present)

Joe Don Baker (born February 12, 1936) is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his role as real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser in the American film classic Walking Tall.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Life and career
- 1.2 James Bond series
2 Filmography
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Life and career

Baker was born in Groesbeck, Texas, the son of Edna (née McDonald) and Doyle Charles Baker.^[1] He got his start in acting as an uncredited character in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, but his real beginnings came when he scored the role of Steve McQueen's younger brother in the film Junior Bonner, directed by Sam Peckinpah. He later starred in the hugely successful 1973 film Walking Tall, directed by Phil Karlson. (Baker also starred in the auteur's final film, "Framed", two years later.) Baker was offered a cameo in the remake (which had nothing to do with Sheriff Buford Pusser) but declined the offer.

Perhaps it is his work in director Don Siegel's 1973 minor masterpiece Charley Varrick that remains Baker's most memorable success. Baker was praised for a courageous and offbeat portrait of the sadistic hitman Molly. The film starred Walter Matthau as the bank robber Varrick, and won a British Academy Award.

Although lampooned on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television series for Mitchell and Final Justice, Baker has given many outstanding performances in a career spanning four decades. In 1980, he became the first actor to receive $1,000,000 to star in a television series--the short lived police drama Eischeid where he played Chief Earl Eischeid.

He was "The Whammer," a mighty baseball slugger clearly modeled after Babe Ruth, in the 1984 baseball drama The Natural that starred Robert Redford. In a memorable scene, the Whammer takes three swings at pitches from the young Roy Hobbs to try to impress a mysterious woman they have met on a train.

In 1985, he portrayed the corrupt Chief Jerry Karlin in the Chevy Chase hit Fletch. In the UK, Baker is probably best known as CIA agent Darius Jedburgh from the drama serial Edge of Darkness.

Martin Scorsese directed him as a private detective in 1991's Cape Fear, hired by a man (Nick Nolte) whose family is being threatened by a psychopathic ex-con (Robert DeNiro).

While actor Carroll O'Connor was undergoing heart bypass surgery, Baker took his place on the television series In the Heat of the Night. Baker appeared as Captain Tom Duggan, a retired police captain who filled in while O'Connor's character was away at a police convention.

[edit] James Bond series

In 1987, Baker got the role of the villain Brad Whitaker in the Bond film The Living Daylights, starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond. In 1995 and 1997 Baker returned to the series, this time playing a different character, the slovenly CIA agent Jack Wade, in GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies with Pierce Brosnan as Bond. He is one of nine actors to have played two separate roles in the official James Bond cinema series, preceded by Charles Gray, Marc Lawrence, Walter Gotell, Jeremy Bulloch, Maud Adams, Burt Kwouk, Anthony Dawson, Tsai Chin and Robert Brown (though Brown is disputed, as his M and Admiral Hargreaves were never officially declared two separate people.) Also Martine Beswick who starred in 'From Russia With Love' as one of the gypsy dancers then later in 'Thunderball' as Paula.

The character of Wade is similar to that of CIA agent Darius Jedburgh, played by Baker in the critically acclaimed 1985 BBC Television serial Edge of Darkness. He was nominated for "Best Actor" by the British Academy Television Awards. This serial was directed by Martin Campbell, who also cast Baker as Wade in GoldenEye.

Strangely enough, Baker was said to have actually tried out for the role of James Bond once for Live and Let Die.