Carroll Baker

Carroll Baker Headshot

Actress

Birth Date: May 28, 1931

Age: 93 years old

Birth Place: Johnstown, Pennsylvania

A talented former dancer and magician's assistant, voluptuous, blonde bombshell Carroll Baker came under the private tutelage of Lee Strasberg once in NYC, eventually becoming a member of the famed Actors Studio. She had appeared in a bit role in "Easy to Love" (1953), but it was her performance on Broadway in Robert Anderson's "All Summer Long" (1955) that led director Elia Kazan and playwright-screenwriter Tennessee Williams to chose her (over Marilyn Monroe) for their classic "Baby Doll" (1956).

Although George Steven's "Giant," which opened two months earlier that same year, introduced Baker as a terrific screen presence, it did not prepare anyone for her sizzling portrayal as the underage and overly ripe wife of Karl Malden, whose erotic thumb-sucking and torrid "love scene" (without a single kiss) played with Eli Wallach on a swing outside the house somehow slipped past the Hays' censors, earning her a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Condemned by the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency because of its "carnal suggestiveness," "Baby Doll" established Baker solidly as an A-list actor.

"Baby Doll" also typed her in Hollywood's eyes as a sexpot, and no matter how hard she tried to transcend that image with serious, unglamorous performances in quality offerings ("The Big Country" 1958, "Something Wild" 1961 and "Cheyenne Autumn" 1964), producers continued grooming her to replace Monroe as the screen's preeminent sex goddess. She got her man (Jimmy Stewart) in the heroic "How the West Was Won" (1962) and reunited with Stevens for his Biblical epic, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965), and although "The Carpetbaggers" (1964), "Sylvia" and "Harlow" (both 1965) captured her flamboyant earnestness, none of these movies did anything to dispel her reputation as a sex kitten.

Blackballed by producer Joseph Levine for failing to promote "Harlow," Baker finally slipped from the A-list for the first time in a decade. Hopelessly in debt with two young children to support after her second marriage (to director Jack Garfein) fizzled, she fled to Italy, churning out sexploitation flicks for the next ten years, feeling lucky to get roles in movies with titles like "Orgasmo" (1969) and "Baba Yaga, Devil Witch" (1973).

Baker returned to the stage, making her London debut as Sadie Thompson in a revival of Somerset Maugham's "Rain" (1977), reprising a role she had played on British TV (BBC) in 1972. She then performed in American regional theater in places like Atlanta, GA ("Bell, Book, and Candle" 1978) and Dallas, TX ("Forty Carats" 1979), the United Kingdom, where she acted in such plays as "Lucy Crown" (1979) and "Motive" (1980), and Canada ("Little Hut" 1981).

As for film, her luck began to change when she landed a part opposite Bette Davis in "The Watcher in the Woods" (1980), which led to higher-profile character work in more promising material ("Star '80" 1983 and "Native Son" 1986). Baker turned in a fine performance as Annie Phelan, Jack Nicholson's wife in "Ironweed" (1987), but it wasn't until playing a villainess to Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Kindergarten Cop" (1990) that she felt confident enough to move back to Los Angeles. Since then she has acted in the features "Blonde Fist" (1991), David Fincher's "The Game" (1997), in which she played the crucial role of Michael Douglas' housekeeper, and "Nowhere to Go" (lensed 1997).

Baker has appeared frequently on TV in the 90s, appearing in a three-week stint on "L A Law" in 1993 and acting in movies like "Skeletons" (HBO, 1996), "North Shore Fish" (Showtime, 1997) and "Heart Full of Rain" (CBS, 1997).

Credits

The Game

Actor
Ilsa
Show
2017

Cinerama Adventure

Self
Movie
2002

Another Woman's Husband

Actor
Laurel's Mom
Movie
2000

RoswellStream

Guest Star
Series
1999

Nowhere to Go

Actor
Nana
Movie
1998

Rag and Bone

Actor
Sister Marie
Movie
1998

Skeletons

Actor
Nancy Norton
Movie
1997

North Shore Fish

Actor
Arlyne
Movie
1997

Heart Full of Rain

Actor
Edith Pearl Dockett
Movie
1997

The GameStream

Actor
Ilsa
Movie
1997
77%

Contra la Corriente

Actor
Movie
1997

Dalva

Actor
Naomi
Movie
1996

Just Your Luck

Actor
Momie
Movie
1996

A la Orden

Actor
Movie
1996

Storie di seduzione

Actor
Diana's Mother
Movie
1995

Judgment Day: The John List Story

Actor
Alma List
Movie
1993

Desperate Measures

Actor
Elaine Mitchelson
Movie
1993

Blonde Fist

Actor
Lovelle Summers
Movie
1991

Kindergarten CopStream

Actor
Eleanor Crisp
Movie
1990
53%

Tales From the Crypt

Actor
Series
1989
82%

IronweedStream

Actor
Annie Phelan
Movie
1987
58%

On Fire

Actor
Maureen
Movie
1987

Le Feu sacré

Actor
Movie
1987

Native Son

Actor
Mrs. Dalton
Movie
1986

Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil

Actor
Gerda Hoffman
Movie
1985

Murder, She WroteStream

Guest Star
Sibella Stone
Series
1984

The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud

Actor
Mama Freud
Movie
1984

Star 80Stream

Actor
Dorothy's Mother
Movie
1983
81%

Red Monarch

Actor
Brown
Movie
1983

Terror Storm

Actor
Sheila
Movie
1982

The World Is Full of Married Men

Actor
Linda Cooper
Movie
1980

The Watcher in the Woods

Actor
Helen Curtis
Movie
1980
52%

Bloodbath

Actor
Treasure
Movie
1979

My Father's Wife

Actor
Laura
Movie
1978

Cyclone

Actor
Sheila
Movie
1978

At Last, At Last

Actor
Lucia
Movie
1977

Bad

Actor
Hazel Aiken
Movie
1977

Ab morgen sind wir reich und ehrlich

Actor
Polly Pott
Movie
1976

Satan's Doll

Actor
Movie
1976

Lezioni private

Actor
Laura Formenti
Movie
1975

James Dean, the First American Teen-ager

Actor
Movie
1975

The Next Victim

Actor
Sandy Marshall
Movie
1975

Town of the Damned

Actor
Treasure
Movie
1975

Il corpo

Actor
Madeliene
Movie
1974

Il fiore dai petali d'acciaio

Actor
Evelyn
Movie
1973

A Quiet Place to Kill

Actor
Helen
Movie
1973

Kiss Me, Kill Me

Actor
Baba Yaga
Movie
1973

Capitaine Apache

Actor
Movie
1973

Il coltello di ghiaccio

Actor
Martha Caldwell
Movie
1972

El Caballero de las Cien Máscaras

Actor
Movie
1972

El Caballero de las Cien Caras

Actor
Movie
1972

Il Diavolo a sette facce

Actor
Movie
1971

La última señora Anderson

Actor
Julie Spencer / Lillian Martin
Movie
1971

Captain Apache

Actor
Maude
Movie
1971

The Devil With Seven Faces

Actor
Julie Harrison/Mary Harrison
Movie
1971

Si douce si perverse

Actor
Nicole Perrier
Movie
1969

Kiss Me, Kill Me

Actor
Movie
1969

La Ayudante del Fiscal

Actor
Movie
1969

Il dolce corpo di Deborah

Actor
Deborah
Movie
1968

Paranoia

Actor
Kathryn West
Movie
1968

Jack of Diamonds

Actor
Carroll Baker
Movie
1967

Sylvia

Actor
Sylvia: West
Movie
1965

Mister Moses

Actor
Julie Anderson
Movie
1965

The Greatest Story Ever ToldStream

Actor
Veronica
Movie
1965
42%

Harlow

Actor
Jean Harlow
Movie
1965

Cheyenne AutumnStream

Actor
Deborah Wright
Movie
1964
60%

The Carpetbaggers

Actor
Rina Marlowe Cord
Movie
1964

Station Six-Sahara

Actor
Catherine
Movie
1963

How the West Was WonStream

Actor
Eve Prescott
Movie
1962
87%

Something Wild

Actor
Mary Ann Robinson
Movie
1961

Bridge to the SunStream

Actor
Gwen Terasaki
Movie
1961

But Not for Me

Actor
Ellie Brown/Borden
Movie
1959

The Miracle

Actor
Teresa
Movie
1959

The Big CountryStream

Actor
Patricia Terrill
Movie
1958
100%

Voice of the Big Country

Actor
Movie
1958

GiantStream

Actor
Luz Benedict II
Movie
1956
88%

Baby DollStream

Actor
Baby Doll Meighan
Movie
1956
83%

Easy to Love

Actor
Clarice
Movie
1953

What's My Line?Stream

Guest
Game Show
1950