‘Walking Tall’ Actor Joe Don Baker Dies Aged 89

in Movie

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Joe Don Baker in 1973’s ‘Walking Tall’. Photo: Cinerama Releasing Corporation.

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Joe Don Baker has died at the age of 89.
He enjoyed a long career playing characters on both sides of the law.
The actor may be best remembered for his role in 1973’s ‘Walking Tall’

Joe Don Baker, a burly, charismatic actor, died, according to a report from his family, on May 7th.

As a performer, he enjoyed a long and successful career, though it could well be defined by one standout –– a very violent, yet righteous lawman.

In 1973’s ‘Walking Tall,’ he was Sheriff Buford Pusser, who spoke his mind and carried a big stick to mete out his particular brand of justice.

“The measure of a man is how tall he walks.”

R2 hr 5 minFeb 22nd, 1973

Yet there was far more to Baker’s life and work than just being a tough guy. As his obituary reads, he was “a beacon of kindness and generosity. His intellectual curiosity made him a voracious reader, inspiring a great love of nature and animals, particularly cats. Throughout his life, Joe Don touched many lives with his warmth and compassion, leaving an indelible mark on everyone fortunate enough to know him.”

Joe Don Baker: Early Life

Joe Don Baker in ‘Charley Varrick’. Photo: Universal Pictures.

Born on February 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas, Baker’s early life was marked by the loss of his mother at the age of 12, after which he was raised by his aunt. He attended North Texas State College, where he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and graduated in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 1994 he received the Distinguished Alumni award from his college, now renamed University of North Texas.

Tellingly, for the frame that would help define his later movie presence, he played linebacker on the football team, graduating in 1958 with a degree in business administration.

Despite that accreditation, he followed a familiar path at the time, and joined the U.S. Army for a two-year stint, before heading to New York to pursue acting at the Actors Studio.

Joe Don Baker: TV Roles

Joe Don Baker in 1973’s ‘Walking Tall’. Photo: Cinerama Releasing Corporation.

In 1963 and 1964, Baker appeared on Broadway in Actors Studio productions of ‘Marathon ’33’ opposite Julie Harris and ‘Blues for Mister Charlie,’ written by James Baldwin and directed by Burgess Meredith.

He came to Los Angeles and made it to the screen, finding work on a wealth of TV series including ‘The Mod Squad,’‘Gunsmoke,’‘Bonanza,’‘Honey West,’‘Mission: Impossible,’‘Ironside,’‘The Streets of San Francisco,’ and more recently, ‘The Cleaner’ and what might be his most notable small screen role, that of CIA man Darius Jedburgh in the six-hour BBC miniseries ‘Edge of Darkness,’ directed by Martin Campbell.

He clearly enjoyed the role, commenting later about it:

“I could have done that all my life, I think, or at least for years and been happy.”

Joe Don Baker: Movie Roles

Joe Don Baker as Brad Whitaker in ‘The Living Daylights’. Photo: United Artists.

In amongst his TV work, Baker began to score movie roles, including an uncredited big screen debut as a fixer in ‘Cool Hand Luke’ and as Slater in ‘Guns of the Magnificent Seven.’

As mentioned above, Baker’s most memorable role will forever be that of former professional wrestler Sheriff Pusser in ‘Walking Tall’ — based on a real-life sheriff who cleaned up crime in his Tennessee town. In the part, his character survives a series of beatings; represents himself in court and wins; gets elected sheriff; sees his wife murdered; and wields clubs carved from oak trees to beat up vicious gamblers and moonshiners.

Here’s what Baker said of the part during an interview in the mid-1990s:

“In those days in the early ’70s, I think a lot of people wanted to take a stick to Nixon and all those Watergate guys. The movie touched a vigilante nerve in everybody who would like to do in the bad guys but don’t have the power and would get in trouble if they did. But Buford was able to pull it off.”

An independent release from Bing Crosby Productions, ‘Walking Tall’ was distributed by Cinerama Releasing Corp. and became a huge financial success, grossing an estimated $40 million ($622 million in today’s money) on a budget of about $500,000 ($3.6 million today).

Famously, Baker later became arguably the first American Bond villain and one of the few actors to return to the franchise in another role.

Looming over his co-stars at six-foot-three, he played the arms dealer Brad Whitaker in 1987’s ‘The Living Daylights’ starring Timothy Dalton as 007, then returned as a good guy, CIA agent Jack Wade, opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1995 and 1997 movies ‘GoldenEye’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’, respectively.

An able actor from the start, his roles evolved as time went on, expanding into comedy, including in ‘Fletch,’ and ‘Mars Attacks!’

Other movies included ‘Congo,’‘Reality Bites,’ 1991’s ‘Cape Fear,’ ‘The Natural’ and ‘Charley Varrick.’

After appearing in nearly 60 movies throughout his career, Baker retired in 2012. He is survived by extended family in Groesbeck, Texas.