Joe Don Baker
Acting
Biography
Joe Don Baker (February 12, 1936 - May 7, 2025) was an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, and CIA agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies.
Born: February 12, 1936
Place of Birth: Groesbeck, Texas, USA
Known For
Edge of Darkness
Environmental activist Emma Craven is murdered in front of her father, local police inspector Ronald Craven. Investigating the death leads him through a haunting revelation of the murkiness of British nuclear policy of the 1980s.
Inside The Living Daylights
The making of the film that introduced Timothy Dalton as James Bond, who gave Bond a darker edge for a new generation.
Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade
An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured artist whose genius and inner demons changed the Western genre forever.
Cool Hand Luke
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible is an American television series that was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicles the missions of a team of secret government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force. In the first season, the team is led by Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill; Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, takes charge for the remaining seasons. A hallmark of the series shows Briggs or Phelps receiving his instructions on a recording that then self-destructs, followed by the theme music composed by Lalo Schifrin. The series aired on the CBS network from September 1966 to March 1973, then returned to television for two seasons on ABC, from 1988 to 1990, retaining only Graves in the cast. It later inspired a popular series of theatrical motion pictures starring Tom Cruise, beginning in 1996.
Bonanza
The High-Sierra adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.
Judd for the Defense
High-priced Houston lawyer Clinton Judd and his assistant Ben Caldwell take difficult cases throughout the U.S.
Charley Varrick
Charley Varrick robs a bank in a small town with his friends, but instead of obtaining a small amount of money, they discover they stole a very large amount of money belonging to the mob. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well.
Cape Fear
Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.
Mud
Two teenage boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and help him reunite with his lover and escape an avenging family and their armed posse.
Filmography
as King
as Bill Calhoun
as Governor Jim Applewhite
as Self (archive footage)
as Rep. Hale Boggs
as Don, Brandy's Dad (uncredited)
as Dylan Garrett
as Self
as Buck Duke
as P.J. Parker
as Wade
as Big Jim Folsom
as Big Jim Folsom
as Horace
as Glenn Norris
as Sheriff Junius Candle
as Gerry Spence
as Jack Wade
as R.B. Travis
as Brimmer
as Clay Hinkle
as Donovan
as Man in Black
as Tom Pierce
as Det. Frank Farrel
as Olaf Andersen
as Sen. Joseph McCarthy
as Claude Kersek
as Cliffe Wheater
as Detective Mesel
as Hunter McCall
as Snyderburn
as Carl Cunningham
as Brad Whitaker
as Sheriff Onstad
as King R. Kenderson
as Darius Jedburgh
as Chief Jerry Karlin
as Geronimo
as The Whammer
as Joseph Rutter
as Dick Harbinger
as Tommy Vanda
as Earl Eischied
as Chief Earl M. Eischied
as Chief Earl Eischied
as Jerry
as Pete Novick
as Wishbone Cutter
as Walkaway Madden
as Mitchell
as Ron Lewis
as Dan Mason
as Jack Cody
as Aaron Hickey
as Molly
as Buford Pusser
as Phil Bonner
as Curly Bonner
as Irish member of Valachi gang (uncredited)
as Mongo Nash
as Danny
as Paul Buckman
as Harvey Gavin
as Slater
as Billy Joe Corey
as Fixer
as Yuma
as Alex Drake
as Rocky Hansen
as Tom Lightfoot
as Luke Harper
as Woody Stoner
as Tom Butler