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Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Joe Don Baker Dies: ‘Walking Tall' Star Who Appeared In Three James Bond Films Was 89
Joe Don Baker, the actor who as the real-life Sheriff Buford Pusser in the 1973 vigilante film Walking Tall carried a big stick to mete out his own Tennessee brand of justice, died May 7, his family has announced. He was 89. A cause of death was not disclosed. More from Deadline 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries Samuel French Dies: 'Killers Of The Flower Moon' & 'Fear The Walking Dead' Actor Was 45 Mark Gaines Dies: Longtime Universal Distribution Exec Was 77 Born February 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas, Baker played football for North Texas State College and, upon graduating in 1959, served a two-year stint in the Army before moving to New York City to study acting at the Actor's Studio. He would remain a lifelong member of the famed organization. After some time performing on the New York stage – he appeared on Broadway in 1963's Marathon '33 and, a year later, in Blues for Mister Charlie. He then moved to Los Angeles and launched a TV and film career that included guest appearances on such series as Honey West, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, Mission: Impossible, Lancer and The Streets of San Francisco, among many others. Early film roles included small parts in Cool Hand Luke and The Valachi Papers. His signature role came in 1973, when he took up a four-foot-long hickory club as the weapon of choice for Walking Tall's justice-seeking Sheriff Buford Pusser. Critics may have scoffed, but the movie, directed by Phil Karlson, was a hit with audiences caught up in the 1970s vigilante-film craze that included Death Wish, Dirty Harry and even Taxi Driver. Georgia-based rock band Drive-By Truckers dedicated a three-song run on its 2004 album The Dirty South to Pusser and Walking Tall, telling the tell from the other side of the law on 'The Boys From Alabama,' 'Cottonseed' and 'The Buford Stick.' Saying Goodbye: A Video Tribute To The Hollywood & Media Figures We've Lost In 2025 Standing at 6'2″ and with the broad frame of the linebacker he was in college, Baker had a prolific screen career playing tough guys on both sides of the law throughout the 1970s and '80s in such movies as Charley Varrick (1973), Mitchell (1975) and Speedtrap (1977). Comedy roles increasingly made their way to Baker in the 1980s and 1990s, including another police chief role in the 1985 Chevy Chase comedy Fletch and, in 1996, Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! Other memorable roles included a baseball player known as The Whammer opposite Robert Redford in The Natural (1984) and, in 1991, a corrupt investigator in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear. He toplined the NBC crime drama Eischied, playing the NYPD's tough chief of detectives who had a soft side for his pet cat. The series debuted in September 1979 but lasted just one season. Baker also appeared in three James Bond films of the 1980s and '90s. He played a bad guy in The Living Daylights (1987) opposite Timothy Dalton as Bond, and a 007 ally CIA agent in the Pierce Brosnan-led GoldenEye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). After appearing in nearly 60 movies throughout his career, Baker retired in 2012. His marriage in 1969 to Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres ended with divorce in 1980. Baker is survived by extended family in Groesbeck, Texas. A funeral service to honor his life will be held Tuesday in Mission Hills, California. Erik Pedersen contributed to this report. Best of Deadline 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries Where To Watch All The 'Mission: Impossible' Movies: Streamers With Multiple Films In The Franchise Everything We Know About 'My Life With The Walter Boys' Season 2 So Far
Boston Globe
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Joe Don Baker, actor who found fame with ‘Walking Tall,' dies at 89
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up A low-budget production, directed by journeyman filmmaker Phil Karlson, it opened on Staten Island, N.Y., months before it arrived in Manhattan but proved to be a phenomenon. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film in the Times, called it 'relentlessly violent' but also 'uncommonly well acted.' Advertisement It was soon noticed and praised by a wide array of prominent critics. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it 'a volcano of a movie' and saw in Mr. Baker, a 37-year-old unknown with a decade of credits, mostly on television, 'the mighty stature of a classic hero.' 'The picture's crudeness and its crummy cinematography give it the illusion of honesty,' she wrote. Advertisement The character Mr. Baker played -- Sheriff Buford Pusser, whose weapon of choice is an oversize, homemade baseball bat -- was a real person. According to Variety, 'Walking Tall,' which was made for about $500,000, earned more than $40 million worldwide. Looking back in 2000, Vanity Fair saw the film's star as its secret weapon, writing that 'Walking Tall' had 'a major asset in Joe Don Baker, whose sideburns and greasy, likable rockabilly grin suggest a larger doughnut version of Elvis Presley.' Joe Don Baker was born Feb. 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas, a small town east of Waco. He was the only child of Doyle Charles Baker, who managed a gas station, and Edna (McDonald) Baker. After his mother's death, in 1946, he was raised by an aunt. Joe Don Baker played football in high school and had no particular interest in acting. But in his senior year at North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas), he got a small part in a play. After graduating in 1958 and serving in the Army for two years, he headed for New York. He studied at the Actors Studio and made his Broadway debut in 1963 in 'Marathon '33,' a play written by actress June Havoc about Depression-era dance marathons. Both that and his next play, James Baldwin's 'Blues for Mister Charlie' (1964), were Actors Studio Theater productions. Mr. Baker made his television debut in a 1965 episode of the detective series 'Honey West,' as a truck driver in trouble with his employer. He had an uncredited part in the hit Paul Newman prison drama 'Cool Hand Luke' (1967) before making his official movie debut in 'Guns of the Magnificent Seven' (1969). Advertisement He was noticed in Sam Peckinpah's 'Junior Bonner' (1971), in which he played Steve McQueen's cheerfully dishonest younger brother. The character, Andrew Sarris wrote in The Village Voice, is 'a kind of Disneyland desperado, out to swindle all the senior citizens he can find.' After 'Walking Tall,' Mr. Baker made an equally impressive showing in the Don Siegel heist film " Charley Varrick" (1973). His character, a supremely confident Mafia hit man, is the kind who would shove a storekeeper in a wheelchair against a wall or literally kick a man when he's down. Otherwise, Mr. Baker was often the face of law enforcement: a drug-dealing police chief in Chevy Chase comedy thriller 'Fletch' (1985); another small-town Southern sheriff in 'The Grass Harp' (1995); a private detective who knows how to play tough in Martin Scorsese's 'Cape Fear' (1991). Mr. Baker, however, was far from typecast, in film or on television. In 'The Natural' (1984), starring Robert Redford, he was a 1920s baseball superstar meant to evoke Babe Ruth. He was bellicose Senator Joe McCarthy in HBO's 'Citizen Cohn' (1992) and Big Jim Folsom, a colorful midcentury Alabama governor, in 'George Wallace' (1997). He played a brutally sadistic ex-con in a leisure suit in 'Framed' (1975), Winona Ryder's father in 'Reality Bites' (1994), a rural Kansan ready to fight off space aliens with a shotgun in 'Mars Attacks!' (1996), a heroine's beer-guzzling father in 'Joe Dirt' (2001), and a detective's rich father-in-law in 'Poodle Springs' (1998). Mr. Baker appeared in three James Bond movies. He played a CIA agent in 'GoldenEye' (1995) and the same character in 'Tomorrow Never Dies' (1997), both starring Pierce Brosnan. That was a step up morally from his first Bond role: an arms dealer and historical-battle fanatic, up against Timothy Dalton, in 'The Living Daylights' (1987). Advertisement His marriage to Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres ended in divorce in 1980 after 11 years. No immediate family members survive. When asked how an inexperienced young man like him had been accepted into the prestigious Actors Studio, Mr. Baker was typically modest. 'I listened,' he said in a 1986 video interview. 'I did a scene with a girl, and she did most of the talking, so I listened. Come to find out, that's what you're supposed to do when you act is listen.' This article originally appeared in
