Joe Don Baker (born February 12, 1936) is an American character actor and a life member of the Actors Studio, known for iconic roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute-force-with-a-badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, CIA Agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, NYPD Chief of Detectives Earl Eischied in the television police drama Eischied, and his BAFTA-nominated performance in Edge of Darkness.

Biography

Baker was born in Groesbeck, Texas, the son of Edna (née McDonald) and Doyle Charles Baker. He attended the University of North Texas. In 1964 he appeared on stage in ''Marathon '33 at the ANTA Theatre in New York City. He got his start in acting as an uncredited character in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke'' and as an illiterate vending machine robber in a 1969 episode of the TV series Mod Squad, but his real beginnings came when he scored the role of Steve McQueen's younger brother in Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner. He later starred in the 1973 film Walking Tall, directed by Phil Karlson and also starring in the filmmaker's final work, Framed, two years later. Baker was offered a cameo in the remake, but declined the offer.

His work in 1973's Charley Varrick may remain Baker's most memorable success. Baker was praised for a courageous and offbeat portrait of the sadistic hitman Molly. The film starred Walter Matthau as the bank robber Varrick, and won a British Academy Award.

Baker has given many outstanding performances in a career spanning four decades. In 1980, he became the first actor to receive $1,000,000 to star in a television series, the short-lived Eischeid.

He was "The Whammer," a baseball player modeled after Babe Ruth, in the 1984 baseball drama The Natural that starred Robert Redford. In a scene, the Whammer takes three swings at pitches from the young Roy Hobbs to try to impress a mysterious woman they have met on a train.

In 1985, he portrayed the corrupt Chief Jerry Karlin in Fletch. In the UK, Baker is probably best known as CIA agent Darius Jedburgh from the BBC Television drama serial Edge of Darkness. He was nominated for "Best Actor" by the British Academy Television Awards, losing to his co-star Bob Peck.

Martin Scorsese directed him as a private detective in 1991's Cape Fear, hired by a man (Nick Nolte) whose family is being threatened by a psychopathic ex-convict (Robert De Niro).

While actor Carroll O'Connor was undergoing heart bypass surgery, Baker took his place on the television series In the Heat of the Night. Baker appeared as Captain Tom Dugan, a retired police captain who filled in while O'Connor's character was away at a police convention. Recently, he has appearances in "Joe Dirt" "The Dukes of Hazzard" "Strange Wilderness." Baker plays "King" in "Mud" with Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and Sam Shepard. Directed by Jeff Nichols, opening in 2012. Marking his 45th year as a film actor.

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