{"id":669370,"date":"2025-05-15T15:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/joe-don-baker-rugged-star-of-walking-tall-dies-at-89\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T15:30:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:30:35","slug":"joe-don-baker-rugged-star-of-walking-tall-dies-at-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/joe-don-baker-rugged-star-of-walking-tall-dies-at-89\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Don Baker, Rugged Star of \u2018Walking Tall,\u2019 Dies at 89"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tJoe 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\u00a0Walking Tall<\/em>, died May 7, his family announced<\/a>. He was 89.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker 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\u2019s\u00a0Junior Bonner\u00a0<\/em>(1972), then portrayed a sadistic mob hitman named Molly in Don Siegel\u2019s\u00a0Charley Varrick\u00a0<\/em>(1973), starring Walter Matthau.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn James Bond films, the 6-foot-3 Baker played a villain, the megalomaniacal arms dealer Brad Whitaker, in\u00a0The Living Daylights\u00a0<\/em>(1987), starring Timothy Dalton as 007, then returned as a good guy, CIA agent Jack Wade, opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1995 and \u201997 movies<\/a>\u00a0GoldenEye\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Tomorrow Never Dies<\/em>, respectively.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs former professional wrestler Pusser \u2014 based on a real-life sheriff who cleaned up crime in his Tennessee town \u2014 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\u00a0Walking Tall\u00a0<\/em>(1973).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn those days in the early \u201970s, I think a lot of people wanted to take a stick to Nixon and all those Watergate guys,\u201d Baker said<\/a> in an interview from the mid-1990s. His movie\u00a0<\/em>\u201ctouched a vigilante nerve in everybody who would like to do in the bad guys but don\u2019t have the power and would get in trouble if [they] did. But Buford was able to pull it off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAn independent release from Bing Crosby Productions,\u00a0Walking Tall\u00a0<\/em>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).<\/p>\n

\n\tWalking Tall\u00a0<\/em>director Phil Karlson, in a 1974 interview with\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, said<\/a> his ultra-violent movie did so well because it fulfilled \u201ca deep hunger to have a man in a movie who is big, powerful and one people can look up to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe real Pusser agreed to star in a\u00a0Walking Tall\u00a0<\/em>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 \u201977 (and later on an NBC show), while Baker and Karlson reteamed for another vigilante drama set in Tennessee, Framed <\/em>(1975).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor then portrayed a violent cop once again in\u00a0Mitchell<\/i>, also\u00a0released in 1975.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1963 and \u201964, Baker app<\/a>eared on Broadway in Actors Studio productions of\u00a0Marathon \u201933\u00a0<\/em>opposite Julie Harris and\u00a0Blues for Mister Charlie<\/em>, written by James Baldwin and directed by Burgess Meredith.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe came to Los Angeles and made it to the screen, finding work on\u00a0Honey West<\/em>, Bonanza <\/em>and Gunsmoke <\/em>and in the films\u00a0Cool Hand Luke\u00a0<\/em>(1967) and\u00a0Guns of the Magnificent Seven\u00a0<\/em>(1969).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker and Tom Skerritt played sons of Karl Malden in Blake Edwards\u2018\u00a0Wild Rovers\u00a0<\/em>(1971) before he united with Robert Duvall and Karen Black to bust up a crime syndicate in\u00a0The Outfit\u00a0<\/em>(1973).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1985, Baker starred as crack CIA man Darius Jedburgh in the six-hour BBC miniseries\u00a0Edge of Darkness<\/em>, directed by Martin Campbell. \u201cI could have done that all my life, I think, or at least for years and been happy,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe 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\u00a0GoldenEye<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor also starred as a Southern sheriff turned NYPD detective on the 1978-79 NBC series\u00a0Eischied<\/em>, played a crooked cop in\u00a0Fletch\u00a0<\/em>(1985) and stepped in for Carroll O\u2019Connor, then sidelined after heart surgery, as the chief of police on NBC\u2019s\u00a0In the Heat of the Night\u00a0<\/em>in 1989.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker wielded another big stick as a Babe Ruth-like swatter in\u00a0The Natural\u00a0<\/em>(1984) and appeared in such other films as\u00a0Leonard Part 6\u00a0<\/em>(1987),\u00a0Cape Fear\u00a0<\/em>(1991),\u00a0Reality Bites\u00a0<\/em>(1994),\u00a0The Grass Harp <\/em>(1995), Mars Attacks! <\/em>(1996),\u00a0Joe Dirt\u00a0<\/em>(2001),\u00a0The Dukes of Hazzard\u00a0<\/em>(2005) and\u00a0Mud\u00a0<\/em>(2012).<\/p>\n

\n\tHe 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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\u00a0Walking Tall, died May 7, his family announced. He was 89.\u00a0 Baker first attracted mainstream attention in 1972 when he starred as the younger, business-minded brother of an aging…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":669371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/walking_tall_1973_387-h_2018.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[137151,5162,5200,13133],"class_list":["post-669370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-blake-edwards","tag-james-bond","tag-obituaries","tag-pierce-brosnan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}