Joe Don Baker obit

Joe Don Baker, Rugged Star of ‘Walking Tall,’ Dies at 89

The Texan also was memorable in 'Junior Bonner' and 'Charley Varrick' and as two different characters — one good guy, one bad — in Bond films. 

He was not on the list.

Joe Don Baker, the broad-shouldered Texas tough guy who portrayed characters on both sides of the law, most notably Sheriff Buford Pusser in the unexpected box-office hit Walking Tall, died May 7, his family announced. He was 89.

Baker first attracted mainstream attention in 1972 when he starred as the younger, business-minded brother of an aging Arizona rodeo rider (Steve McQueen) in Sam Peckinpah’s Junior Bonner (1972), then portrayed a sadistic mob hitman named Molly in Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick (1973), starring Walter Matthau.

In James Bond films, the 6-foot-3 Baker played a villain, the megalomaniacal arms dealer Brad Whitaker, in The Living Daylights (1987), starring Timothy Dalton as 007, then returned as a good guy, CIA agent Jack Wade, opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1995 and ’97 movies GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, respectively.

As former professional wrestler Pusser — based on a real-life sheriff who cleaned up crime in his Tennessee town — Baker 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 in Walking Tall (1973).

“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,” Baker said in an interview from the mid-1990s. His 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 today) on a budget of about $500,000 ($3.6 million today).

Walking Tall director Phil Karlson, in a 1974 interview with The New York Times, said his ultra-violent movie did so well because it fulfilled “a deep hunger to have a man in a movie who is big, powerful and one people can look up to.”

The real Pusser agreed to star in a Walking Tall sequel but hours later was killed in a traffic accident in August 1974. Bo Svenson then took the lead in big-screen follow-ups released in 1975 and ’77 (and later on an NBC show), while Baker and Karlson reteamed for another vigilante drama set in Tennessee, Framed (1975).

The actor then portrayed a violent cop once again in Mitchell, also released in 1975.

Baker was born on Feb. 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas. His mother, Edna, died when he was 12, and he was raised by an aunt. A linebacker at Groesbeck High School, his hero was Doak Walker, who played halfback at Southern Methodist University and won the Heisman Trophy in 1948.

Baker had his first experience as an actor as a senior at North Texas State College in Denton. After graduating with a business degree in 1958 and serving for two years in the U.S. Army, he moved to New York and was accepted into The Actors Studio.

In 1963 and ’64, 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 Honey West, Bonanza and Gunsmoke and in the films Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969).

Baker and Tom Skerritt played sons of Karl Malden in Blake Edwards‘ Wild Rovers (1971) before he united with Robert Duvall and Karen Black to bust up a crime syndicate in The Outfit (1973).

In 1985, Baker starred as crack CIA man Darius Jedburgh in the six-hour BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness, directed by Martin Campbell. “I could have done that all my life, I think, or at least for years and been happy,” he said.

He was nominated for a BAFTA award but lost out in the best actor race to his co-star, Englishman Ben Peck. A decade later, Campbell turned to Baker again for GoldenEye.

The actor also starred as a Southern sheriff turned NYPD detective on the 1978-79 NBC series Eischied, played a crooked cop in Fletch (1985) and stepped in for Carroll O’Connor, then sidelined after heart surgery, as the chief of police on NBC’s In the Heat of the Night in 1989.

Baker wielded another big stick as a Babe Ruth-like swatter in The Natural (1984) and appeared in such other films as Leonard Part 6 (1987), Cape Fear (1991), Reality Bites (1994), The Grass Harp (1995), Mars Attacks! (1996), Joe Dirt (2001), The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) and Mud (2012).

He was married to Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres from 1969 until their 1980 divorce and is survived by relatives in Groesbeck. A funeral service to honor his life will be held Tuesday in Mission Hills, California.

 

Filmography

Film

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1967    Cool Hand Luke            Fixer            Uncredited

1969    Guns of the Magnificent Seven   Slater  

1970    Adam at Six A.M.            Harvey Gavin  

1971    Wild Rovers Paul Buckman         

Welcome Home Soldier Boys    Danny 

1972    Junior Bonner Curly Bonner

The Valachi Papers  Mad Dog Coll            Uncredited

1973            Walking Tall    Buford Pusser 

Charley Varrick Molly  

The Outfit            Jack Cody   

1974    Golden Needles            Dan Mason 

1975    Framed            Ron Lewis  

Mitchell            Mitchell            Spoofed on the cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000

1977            Checkered Flag or Crash            Walkaway Madden   

The Shadow of Chikara            Wishbone Cutter         

Speedtrap            Pete Novick

The Pack            Jerry    

1982    Wacko            Dick Harbiger          

1983            Joysticks         Joseph Rutter  

1984    The Natural The Whammer       

Final Justice            Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III            Also spoofed on MST3K

1985    Fletch            Chief Jerry Karlin     

1986    Getting Even     King R. Kenderson      

1987    The Living Daylights            Brad Whitaker         

The Killing Time     Carl Cunningham     

Leonard Part 6            Nick Snyderburn      

1988            Criminal Law            Detective Mesel         

1990    The Children            Cliffe Wheater          

1991    Cape Fear     Claude Kersek

1992    The Distinguished Gentleman            Olaf Anderson        

1994    Ring of Steel     Man in Black  

Reality Bites            Tom Pierce  

Felony            Donovan         

1995    The Underneath            Hinkle 

Panther            Brimmer          

Congo  R.B. Travis  

The Grass Harp    Sheriff Junius Candle  

GoldenEye            Jack Wade  

1996    Mars Attacks!            Glenn Norris 

1997            Tomorrow Never Dies            Jack Wade  

2001    Vegas, City of Dreams            Dylan Garrett

Joe Dirt            Don            Uncredited

2003    The Commission            Hale Boggs  

2005    The Dukes of Hazzard            Governor Jim Applewhite      

2008    Strange Wilderness            Bill Calhoun           

2012    Mud            King    

Television

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1965    Honey West    Rocky Hansen            "Rockabye the Hard Way"

Iron Horse            Johnson            "Cougar Man"

1967    Judd for the Defense            Merl Varney            "Shadow of a Killer"

The Felony Squad  Shep Taubus "My Mommy Got Lost"

1968            Bonanza          Luke Harper "The Real People of Muddy Creek"

The Outsider            Billy Joe Corey            "A Wide Place in the Road"

1966–69            Gunsmoke      Woody Stoner / Tom Butler   2 episodes

— "Prime of Life" (1966)

— "Reprisal" (1969)

1968–70            Lancer            Day Pardee / Santee / Clovis Horner            3 episodes

— "The High Riders" (1968)

— "Cut the Wolf Loose" (1969)

— "Shadow of a Dead Man" (1970)

1969    The Big Valley   Tom Lightfoot            "Lightfoot"

Mod Squad            Willie Turner  "Willie Poor Boy"

1970            Bracken's World            Nick Fontaine            "Focus on a Gun"

The F.B.I.            Alex Drake            "Summer Terror"

The Most Deadly Game            Alan            "Breakdown"

1971    The High Chaparral            Yuma            "The Hostage"

Mission: Impossible            Frank Kearney            "The Miracle"

Mongo's Back in Town            Mongo Nash    TV Movie

1972            Ironside          Eric Blair            "Camera... Action... Murder!"

That Certain Summer            Phil Bonner TV Movie

1973    Doc Elliot     Aaron Hickey "Pilot"

The Streets of San Francisco            Leonard Collier Cord            "Beyond Vengeance"

1978    To Kill a Cop   Chief Earl M. Eishied            TV Movie

1979–80            Eischied          Chief Earl Eishied            series regular (13 episodes); also production consultant

1980    Power            Tommy Vanda  TV Movie; also production executive

1985    Edge of Darkness            Darius Jedburgh            Miniseries (6 episodes)

Nominated – BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor

1987    The Abduction of Kari Swenson            Sheriff Onstad TV Movie

1989    Screen Two     Hunter McCall            "Defrosting the Fridge"

In the Heat of the Night            Tom Dugan / Acting Chief Tom Dugan  4 episodes

— "Fifteen Forever"

— "Ladybug, Ladybug"

— "The Pig Woman of Sparta"

— "Missing"

1992    Citizen Cohn    Senator Joseph McCarthy            TV Movie

1993            Complex of Fear            Detective Frank Farrel            TV Movie

1996    The Siege of Ruby Ridge   Gerry Spence TV Movie

1997    To Dance with Olivia   Horace Henely  TV Movie

George Wallace            Big Jim Folsom            Miniseries

1998    Poodle Springs P.J. Parker  TV Movie

1999    Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke            Buck Duke            Miniseries

2009    The Cleaner            Major Larry Duren            "Last American Casualty"

Theater

Year     Title            Role            Venue            Notes

1963–64            Marathon '33   Mr. James   ANTA Playhouse            48 performances

1964    Blues for Mister Charlie Ellis            ANTA Playhouse            148 performances

Also understudy for multiple parts (Rev. Phelps, Judge, Court Stenographer)