STANLEY BAKERDespite not fitting the mould of the conventionally dashing and romantic lead man that most popular Fifties male actors embodied, Stanley Baker – who died on 28 June 1976 – had an undeniable screen presence.His convincing and powerful portrayals of often stern, serious types, or menacing villains, set him apart from legions of other film stars, so much so that he was eventually knighted a month before his death.However, he was not wholly condemned to being the bad guy, being picked by Sir Laurence Olivier to play Henry Tudor in Richard III and then appearing in probably his most well-known role as Lieutenant John Chard VC in Zulu.Nor was his success limited to film acting; among Mr Baker’s other ventures included television drama appearances and setting up his own production firm which made films including the classic The Italian Job as well as the aforementioned Zulu.Born on 8 February, 1927, in the Rhondda Valley in Wales, William Stanley Baker escaped the family tradition of coal mining after his teacher Glyn Morse noticed his acting potential.His first forays into performance were on the stage in Cardiff, with later appearances in Birmingham and London.He made his first film appearance as a teenager years in 1943’s Undercover, and after a break for military service appeared in All Over The Moon in 1949, his first part as an adult.He went on to appear in The Cruel Sea as the unpleasant character of Bennett and his first big role came in crime drama The Good Die Young in 1954, which set the precedent for the string of later criminal and villainous roles in films such as Hell Below Zero, Knights of the Round Table and Helen of Troy.Later on, Mr Baker also enjoyed playing some more principled but still gruff characters in films such as Violent Playground, Blind Date, The Guns of Navarone and Accident, finding time along the way to make political broadcasts for the Labour Party and take part in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.In the 1960s, he decided to branch out and establish his own production firm which turned out some acclaimed hits including Zulu, Robbery, The Italian Job and Where’s Jack?, which were especially well received as the British film industry at that time looked to be flagging.Mr Baker was also spreading his wings elsewhere, landing parts in small-screen dramas The Changeling and Robinson Crusoe as well as the acclaimed TV adaptation of How Green Was My Valley.In 1976 he was awarded a knighthood, but was at the time struggling to beat an aggressive lung cancer and following surgery for the cancer was hospitalised with pneumonia, from which he died in Spain, at the age of 49.Despite not living to officially receive his knighthood, for his wife, Lady Ellen Baker, his sons, and his fans in the film world and otherwise, his massive contribution to movies was obvious.His angular, striking, but stern looks lifted him into a different genre to the numerous other notable fifties film stars, while his on-screen presence possessed an almost awesome power at times.Having already enjoyed such a highly regarded reputation with his own productions, his early death was all the more gutting for the film industry.Mr Baker had risen from a working-class mining background to join the realms of acting greats while at the same time the distinctive characteristics that made his characters come to life were in no small part thanks to that same heritage,
Keep me informed of updates
