Biography

Joe Don Baker

Jump to

Tall, broad-shouldered character actor with Texan drawl first appeared in support in several Western vehicles both on TV and the cinema in the mid 1960s. Got himself noticed playing Steve McQueen's younger brother in Junior Bonner (1972), and then scored the lead role of Buford Pusser (!) in the unexpected hit Walking Tall (1973), an allegedly true tale about a Southern sheriff confronting corruption & gangsters with a large wooden club and a mean attitude. Followed it up by playing a sadistic hit man called Molly, in Don Siegel's bank heist drama Charley Varrick (1973). Joe Don Baker's next few films were rather forgettable until he landed the role of police detective Earl Eischied in To Kill a Cop (1978), which led him into reprising the same character in the short lived TV series Eischied (1979). Since then he has proved he is also quite adept at taking on comedy roles, as well as picking up plenty of work playing lawmen, military men, politicians etc. Keep your eye open for him as a nosy police chief in Fletch (1985), a megalomaniac general in The Living Daylights (1987), as a redneck father in Mars Attacks! (1996), and as intelligence operative Jack Wade in the 007 films Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and GoldenEye (1995).
- IMDb mini biography by: firehouse44

Said in an interview that if he ever met the writers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988) he would "kick [their] asses" for their grilling of Mitchell (1975). This did not stop them from sending up another one of Baker's films, Final Justice (1985), in which they ridicule him even more. Baker later said the threat was a joke.
Along with Charles Gray, who played both Dikko Henderson in You Only Live Twice (1967) and 'Ernst Stavro Blofeld' in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Baker is one of only two actors to play both a major Bond nemesis, Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights (1987), and a significant Bond ally, Jack Wade in GoldenEye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
While Carroll O'Connor was recovering from bypass surgery, Baker appeared in O'Connor's place on In the Heat of the Night (1988) as Tom Dugan.
He appeared in three films with Pierce Brosnan in as many years: GoldenEye (1995), Mars Attacks! (1996) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
Graduated from North Texas State (now known as the University of North Texas).

[on working with Sam Peckinpah in Junior Bonner (1972)] I didn't care for Peckinpah at all. He was one of those little guys who tries to bully big guys and he almost got his ass whipped for trying to do it to me. Every time I was going to throttle Peckinpah, Steve McQueen would come over and calm me down like a brother would.