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American Military News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- American Military News
Joe Don Baker, actor who wielded a big stick in ‘Walking Tall,' dies at 89
Joe Don Baker, the leading man turned character actor who broke out playing Sheriff Buford Pusser in the 1973 movie 'Walking Tall,' has died, his family announced online. The Texas-born tough guy died May 7 at age 89. No cause of death was given. Baker lived in Southern California when he died. 'Joe Don was a beacon of kindness and generosity. … Throughout his life, Joe Don touched many lives with his warmth and compassion, leaving an indelible mark on everyone fortunate enough to know him,' his family said. Born on Feb. 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas, Baker played football and basketball well enough to earn a sports scholarship to North Texas State College — now University of North Texas — where he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1958 and pledged to the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. Baker went into the U.S. Army for two years and then emerged in New York, where he studied at the Actors Studio and performed onstage. His acting career took off in the mid-1960s when he moved to Los Angeles, where he started with TV roles in shows like 'The High Chaparral' and 'Mission: Impossible' before taking the spotlight as a leading man in movies like 'Walking Tall' and 'Final Justice.' When he aged into character actor work, he played Claude Kersek in the 1991 Robert De Niro remake of 'Cape Fear,' Olaf Anderson in Eddie Murphy's 1992 movie 'The Distinguished Gentleman' and Tom Pierce in 1994's 'Reality Bites.' Baker played a villain in the 1987 James Bond movie 'The Living Daylights,' featuring Timothy Dalton as Bond, and then CIA agent Jack Wade in two Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan: 'GoldenEye' in 1995 and 'Tomorrow Never Dies' in 1997. He also spent a lot of time working in TV, playing the title cop role in 'Eischied' in 1979 — he often portrayed officers of the law — Big Jim Folsom in the 1997 miniseries 'George Wallace' and myriad other roles in shows including 'Ironside,' 'The Streets of San Francisco,' 'Gunsmoke' and 'Mod Squad.' As he moved around between TV and film, Baker was ahead of the curve in declaring Hollywood creativity dead. 'In Hollywood, they've chased away all the good writers,' he told The Times in 1986 when he was promoting the BBC-made miniseries 'Edge of Darkness' and strongly favoring foreign work over domestic. 'You never meet the writer when you're making a TV movie in America — they're too ashamed to show up and see how their work has been mangled by some committee. 'I hate the thought of showing up on another TV movie set in America,' he continued. 'All they care about here is whether you remember the words. In England they take the time to get everything right. I was there six months to make six hours. That's a little more than twice as long as it would take in America.' In the United States, Baker said, 'By the time the networks get through worrying about who they're gonna tick off, they wind up with nothing.' He said it was hard to get American studios interested in anything different. 'They want huge budgets, which are easier to steal from. The studios don't seem to mind losing hundreds of millions — they can write it all off. The rest of us can either pay to see their lousy movies or be taxed to cover their write-offs.' But 'Walking Tall,' the movie that made him, was based on the true story of a Tennessee sheriff whose life was turned tragic by criminals. During his six years in office, the real Pusser, known for carrying a big hickory stick he used as a weapon, fought a gang of bootleggers and con men who were operating along the Mississippi-Tennessee state line. He was shot and stabbed on several occasions and killed a thieving female motel owner who ambushed him. Then in 1967 he was waylaid in his car by criminals who shot him and killed his wife, Pauline. Pusser became a nationally known figure thanks to coverage on network news. Even though the movie took the usual Hollywood liberties with Pusser's life, the film played like a pure piece of American neo-realism: Audiences saw a strong family man who becomes politically involved only after being cheated at a local casino, beaten and left for dead. Elected sheriff, he becomes driven, fighting the local criminal syndicate, corrupt judges and state government officials. The film packed an emotional wallop. It was not an instant success, however, when it was first released in urban theaters and sold as a good-old-boy Southern law-and-order drama. 'The initial ads had me coming out of a swamp with slime coming off me and I had this little stick in my hand,' Baker told The Times in 2004, when a significantly reimagined 'Walking Tall' remake starring Dwayne Johnson was coming out. 'They were just terrible ads.' But outsized success in Asian markets led to a new marketing campaign that turned the movie into an American hit. 'I very seldom get good parts offered me now,' he said in 2004. 'I had better parts before I became a so-called star in 'Walking Tall.'' In a 2000 humor column, former Times columnist Chris Erskine lovingly called Baker 'one of the best bad actors ever.' Good parts or not, he won a Robert Altman Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards in 2014 for his work in the 2012 Matthew McConaughey movie 'Mud,' where he played the father of a murdered man. It would be his final work before he retired. Baker was married for 11 years to Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres; the two had no children. A voracious reader and lover of cats and nature, the lifetime member of the Actors Studio 'is mourned by a small but very close circle of friends who will miss him eternally,' his family said. A funeral service will be held Tuesday morning at Utter McKinley Mortuary in Mission Hills. ___ © 2025 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Los Angeles Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Joe Don Baker, actor who wielded a big stick in ‘Walking Tall,' dies at 89
Joe Don Baker, the leading man turned character actor who broke out playing Sheriff Buford Pusser in the 1973 movie 'Walking Tall,' has died, his family announced online. The Texas-born tough guy died May 7 at age 89. No cause of death was given. Baker lived in Southern California when he died. 'Joe Don was a beacon of kindness and generosity. ... Throughout his life, Joe Don touched many lives with his warmth and compassion, leaving an indelible mark on everyone fortunate enough to know him,' his family said. Born on Feb. 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas, Baker played football and basketball well enough to earn a sports scholarship to North Texas State College — now University of North Texas — where he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1958 and pledged to the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. Baker went into the U.S. Army for two years and then emerged in New York, where he studied at the Actors Studio and performed onstage. His acting career took off in the mid-1960s when he moved to Los Angeles, where he started with TV roles in shows like 'The High Chaparral' and 'Mission: Impossible' before taking the spotlight as a leading man in movies like 'Walking Tall' and 'Final Justice.' When he aged into character actor work, he played Claude Kersek in the 1991 Robert DeNiro remake of 'Cape Fear,' Olaf Anderson in Eddie Murphy's 1992 movie 'The Distinguished Gentleman' and Tom Pierce in 1994's 'Reality Bites.' Baker played a villain in the 1987 James Bond movie 'The Living Daylights,' featuring Timothy Dalton as Bond, and then CIA agent Jack Wade in two Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan: 'GoldenEye' in 1995 and 'Tomorrow Never Dies' in 1997. He also spent a lot of time working in TV, playing the title cop role in 'Eischied' in 1979 — he often portrayed officers of the law — Big Jim Folsom in the 1997 miniseries 'George Wallace' and myriad other roles in shows including 'Ironside,' 'The Streets of San Francisco,' 'Gunsmoke' and 'Mod Squad.' As he moved around between TV and film, Baker was ahead of the curve in declaring Hollywood creativity dead. 'In Hollywood, they've chased away all the good writers,' he told The Times in 1986 when he was promoting the BBC-made miniseries 'Edge of Darkness' and strongly favoring foreign work over domestic. 'You never meet the writer when you're making a TV movie in America — they're too ashamed to show up and see how their work has been mangled by some committee. 'I hate the thought of showing up on another TV movie set in America ,' he continued. 'All they care about here is whether you remember the words. In England they take the time to get everything right. I was there six months to make six hours. That's a little more than twice as long as it would take in America.' In the United States, Baker said, 'By the time the networks get through worrying about who they're gonna tick off, they wind up with nothing.' He said it was hard to get American studios interested in anything different. 'They want huge budgets, which are easier to steal from. The studios don't seem to mind losing hundreds of millions — they can write it all off. The rest of us can either pay to see their lousy movies or be taxed to cover their write-offs.' But 'Walking Tall,' the movie that made him, was based on the true story of a Tennessee sheriff whose life was turned tragic by criminals. During his six years in office, the real Pusser, known for carrying a big hickory stick he used as a weapon, fought a gang of bootleggers and con men who were operating along the Mississippi-Tennessee state line. He was shot and stabbed on several occasions and killed a thieving female motel owner who ambushed him. Then in 1967 he was waylaid in his car by criminals who shot him and killed his wife, Pauline. Pusser became a nationally known figure thanks to coverage on network news. Even though the movie took the usual Hollywood liberties with Pusser's life, the film played like a pure piece of American neo-realism: Audiences saw a strong family man who becomes politically involved only after being cheated at a local casino, beaten and left for dead. Elected sheriff, he becomes driven, fighting the local criminal syndicate, corrupt judges and state government officials. The film packed an emotional wallop. It was not an instant success, however, when it was first released in urban theaters and sold as a good-old-boy Southern law-and-order drama. 'The initial ads had me coming out of a swamp with slime coming off me and I had this little stick in my hand,' Baker told The Times in 2004, when a significantly reimagined 'Walking Tall' remake starring Dwayne Johnson was coming out. 'They were just terrible ads.' But outsized success in Asian markets led to a new marketing campaign that turned the movie into an American hit. 'I very seldom get good parts offered me now,' he said in 2004. 'I had better parts before I became a so-called star in 'Walking Tall.'' In a 2000 humor column, former Times columnist Chris Erskine lovingly called Baker 'one of the best bad actors ever.' Good parts or not, he won a Robert Altman Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards in 2014 for his work in the 2012 Matthew McConaughey movie 'Mud,' where he played the father of a murdered man. It would be his final work before he retired. Baker was married for 11 years to Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres; the two had no children. A voracious reader and lover of cats and nature, the lifetime member of the Actors Studio 'is mourned by a small but very close circle of friends who will miss him eternally,' his family said. A funeral service will be held Tuesday morning at Utter McKinley Mortuary in Mission Hills. Freelance writer Lewis Beale contributed to this report.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jack Lilley Dies: ‘Little House On The Prairie' & ‘Blazing Saddles' Actor & Stuntman Who Had 70-Year Screen Career Was 91
Jack Lilley, whose showbiz career spanned more than seven decades as an actor, stuntman, animal coordinator and other roles and included Little House on the Prairie, Blazing Saddles, John Ford films and TV Westerns, has died. He was 91. His family posted the news on Instagram but did not provide a date or cause of death. 'The man who started it all. Figuratively and literally,' the social post reads in part. 'The card shark, the horse trader, the wrangler, the man with a story for everything, he always knew someone who could help if he couldn't, known to many as friend, storyteller, joker, and a heck of a horseman.' More from Deadline 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries Melissa Gilbert Says 'Little House On The Prairie' Reboot At Netflix 'Will Do Things We Didn't Get To Do So Easily In '70s' 'Little House On The Prairie's Melissa Gilbert Reacts To Megyn Kelly's "Woke-ify" Gripe With Netflix Reboot: "Watch Any Episode" Little House star Melissa Gilbert also paid tribute to Lilley on IG, calling him 'one of my favorite people on the planet' and adding, 'I am so lucky that he was my friend.' See her full post below. Born on August 15, 1931, in Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles, Lilley started his career in the late 1940s, following his horse-wrangler father into the entertainment industry. The younger Lilley was a trained horseman and began landing stunt, animal-coordinating and background actor work in such early-TV Westerns as Wagon Train, Death Valley Days and nearly three dozen episodes of Zorro. He also worked on a number of big-screen Westerns of the era. In a 2017 interview for SCVTV, Lilly said he got his start 'in 1947, '48, they were all scrambling to make little Westerns — something to sell to TV.' Lilley would go on to work on dozens of shows including Maverick with James Garner, Clint Eastwood's Rawhide, the record-setting Gunsmoke and four seasons on The High Chaparral as a background actor and stand-in for its star Leif Erickson. He also worked with four-time Oscar-winning director Ford on How the West Was Won (1962) and The Man who Shot Liberty Valence (1962), starring James Stewart and John Wayne. He also was part of Wayne's final film, The Shootist (1976). Lilley worked on more than three dozens episodes of Little House on the Prairie during its Emmy-winning 1974-1983 run on NBC. He appeared onscreen, usually uncredited, as a stage or wagon driver, townsman and other bit roles. He also served as a stunt performer and coordinator and stand-in on the beloved series led by Michael Landon and several follow-up TV movies. He later reteamed with Landon on Highway to Heaven. Lilley also was part of the gang put together by Harvey Korman's Hedy Lamarr — oops, that's Hedley — in Mel Brooks' NSFW Western comedy classic Blazing Saddles. And as a stuntman on the 1974 film, he pulled off one of its wildest gags: When the rowdy 'pack of murderers and thieves' first descends on the poor denizens of Rock Ridge, Lilley is riding a horse that appears to slip on a wooden boardwalk and falls into a waterhole. 'It was a freak deal,' Lilley told SCVTV. 'They took a firehose and washed the side of that street at Warner Bros. Well, when that water hits that old wood, it goes like soap. It got slick. If you look at it, I come in on that black horse … this horse weighed 1,200 pounds, and he wasn't a 'falling' horse … but he got to scrambling. I can't look to see if I'm near a glass window or not, so I just snatched him and fell him. I got up, and Mel Brooks went, 'Holy sh*t — what was that? I ain't never seen nothing like that in my life!'' Lilley also talked about doing a 'scrapped' scene when Mongo (Alex Karras) rode that bull into the church where the townspeople were gathered and filming the famous scene when Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) happens upon Count Basie and his orchestra in the wilds of what turns out to be Palmdale. DEADLINE RELATED VIDEO: Lilley continued to work in multiple capacities as a stuntman, stand-in and/or background actor throughout the 1980s and '90s on such popular fare as Used Cars, Sudden Impact — again with Eastwood — Pink Cadillac, Army of Darkness, Texas Rangers, Three Amigos! and A Walk in the Clouds. His later TV credits include Dallas, Fantasy Island and Bonanza: The Next Generation. Here is Gilbert's Instagram post about Lilley: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Melissa E. Gilbert (@melissagilbertofficial) Best of Deadline How To Watch 'Wicked: Part One': Is The Film Streaming Yet? All The Songs In 'Severance' Season 2: From The Who To Ella Fitzgerald 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries
