George Baker MBE

George Morris Baker, MBE (April 1, 1931 – October 7, 2011) was an English actor and writer. He was well recognized for his roles as Tiberius in “I, Claudius” and Inspector Wexford in “The Ruth Rendell Mysteries”.

Baker was born in Varna, Bulgaria. His father, Frank Baker, was an English merchant and honorary vice consul, while his mother was an Irish Red Cross nurse who relocated to Bulgaria to combat cholera.

He attended Lancing College in Sussex before working as an actor in repertory theater and at the Old Vic.

Baker’s debut picture was The Intruder (1953). He gained his fame in The Dam Busters (1955), and his first big part was in The Ship That Died of Shame (1955), alongside Richard Attenborough.
Baker also appeared as a leading male in The Woman for Joe (1955), starring Diane Cilento; The Feminine Touch (1956), as an attractive doctor in a nurse-themed film; A Hill in Korea (1956), as a gallant soldier, with Robert Shaw and Stanley Baker in support; and The Extra Day (1956), a comedy. In the same year, he made his West End debut in Agatha Christie’s play Toward Zero.
Baker also played the lead in These Dangerous Years (1957), which attempted to make Frankie Vaughan a cinematic star. He reprised his role as a doctor in No Time for Tears (1957) and as a royalist swashbuckling hero of the English Civil War in The Moonraker (1958). He appeared alongside Diana Dors in Tread Softly Stranger (1958).

Baker’s later films included Lancelot and Guinevere (1963) and The Curse of the Fly (1965).

Baker gradually rose to prominence as a television performer. He played the heroic lead in Rupert of Hentzau (1964), security chief Thallon in Undermind (1965), and was the second actor (after Guy Doleman) to play “Number Two” in the series The Prisoner, appearing in the first episode. He played George King in Dennis Potter’s The Bone Grinder (1968), a metaphor for the loss of the

British Empire and the rise of American dominance in the postwar era.
He starred in his own TV comedy series, Bowler. He also appeared in the first episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, portraying a company executive interrogating the show’s hapless main character.

Baker portrayed Emperor Tiberius Caesar in the acclaimed drama serial I, Claudius, released in 1976. George R.R. Martin, author of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was later turned into the television series Game of Thrones, has indicated that the historical Tiberius, and Baker’s performance, served as inspiration for his character Stannis Baratheon. He also appears on an episode of Get Some In!.

In 1977, he played Inspector Roderick Alleyn in the Ngaio Marsh Theatre, a New Zealand television production based on four adaptations of Ngaio Marsh’s crime and mystery books. From 1987 to 2000, he played Inspector Reg Wexford in multiple television versions of Ruth Rendell’s mysteries, and this is undoubtedly his most well-known character. Following the loss of his second wife in 1993, he married Louie Ramsay, the actress who played Mrs Wexford in the same television series.

He has also starred in The Baron, Survivors, Minder in Series 1’s You Gotta Have Friends, Coronation Street (as brewery owner Cecil Newton), the Doctor Who story Full Circle, and as twin brothers in a 2005 episode of Midsomer Murders titled “The House in the Woods”.

Baker also appeared as the “Chief Beefeater” in the episode “Tower of London” of the British comedy television series The Goodies, as well as in the sitcom No Job for a Lady. He is best known for playing Captain Benson, James Bond’s ally, in the film The Spy Who Loved Me, and Sir Hilary Bray, a heraldry expert, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Later, when Bond, played by George Lazenby, impersonates Bray to get access to Blofeld, Baker’s voice was substituted for Lazenby’s to simulate the accent. Baker also as an uncredited NASA engineer in You Only Live Twice.
Ian Fleming thought Baker to be the best choice to play James Bond in the films, but the role went to Sean Connery due to Baker’s existing obligations. He appeared as “Jamus Bondus” in an episode of the 1970s comedic sitcom Up Pompeii!.

Baker’s first theatrical performance was in repertory at Deal, Kent. His main stage credits include a season with the Old Vic (1959–1961), where he played Bolingbroke in Richard II, Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Warwick in Saint Joan. He founded Candida Plays, a touring company located at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in 1965. He played Claudius in Buzz Goodbody’s acclaimed modern-dress Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1975. In 1980, Baker wrote Fatal Spring, a television play on the lives of poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Robert Graves, which aired on BBC 2 on November 7.[8] It earned him a United Nations Peace Award. His other writing credits included four Wexford screenplays.

Mr. Baker was awarded the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2007 for his charity efforts in establishing a youth club in his hometown.

Mr. Baker died on October 7, 2011, at the age of eighty.

• Wiki – Mr George Baker MBE

• Film Career IMDB