JOE DON BAKER

Joe Don Baker was born in Groesbeck, Texas in 1936, and after graduating college he joined the Army and then decided to become an actor. Being a big tough looking man with a Southern drawl and a classic southern-type name, his underlying intelligence was not immediately evident! He got a few roles on Broadway, and also appeared on several TV shows. He got a minor film role as "Fixer" in Cool Hand Luke, but his first big break came when he played Steve McQueen's brother in Sam Peckinpah's "Junior Bonner" in 1972. That led to his being cast in two great roles the following year. One was as the ultra-scary Mafia hitman, "Molly", in Don Siegel's wonderful crime-caper-gone-wrong, Charley Varrick. Siegel made this movie immediately after Dirty Harry, and I think it is clearly the superior movie, and I highly recommend it to fans of this genre! The other role was as Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall. Loosely based on a true story, it was a movie that massively "connected" with audiences everywhere, and was a huge "sleeper" hit. Many actors would have embraced such a role, and appeared in sequels or a TV adaptation, but Baker refused to appear in either of the lackluster sequels. Instead, Baker used his newfound stardom to headline in some action movies. I have seen those movies, and they were not very good. When Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampooned one of them (Mitchell) years later, Baker did not find it funny and threatened to physically assault any of the MST3k cast or crew if he ever met them. They did not take his threats seriously and lampooned another one of his movies, Final Justice! Baker has appeared in three James Bond movies, playing two different characters, and he was surely one of the first choices for any part requiring a tough looking authority figure, and he has appeared in 44 movies in all, and on 35 TV shows, including a starring role in Eischied in 1979, where he played a chief of detectives, and was paid one million dollars (but the show was not successful) and he appeared in 6 episodes of the cult English TV show "Edge of Darkness" in 1985. Baker has done some fine work over the years, but one wishes he had had more roles that fulfilled the promise he showed in his first major movies. As of 2021, Baker is still alive at the age of 84!