I didn’t see this posted. Joe Don Baker, who starred in Walking Tall in the role of Buford Pusser (an actual person and professional wrestler turned lawman), died on May 7th.
He played two different roles in Bond movies: the cheeky, grifting international arms dealer in The Living Daylights, and CIA agent Jack Wade in Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies (the two better Brosnan outings). And while it’s not a good movie, he puts in a great performance in Mitchell.
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Mitchell!
He was memorable in (Chevy Chase) “Fletch,” too.
And a muse for Quinten and Leo…
For me, he was very memorable as The Whammer in The Natural. I always thought of the character as Babe Ruth if he had been an insufferable prick.
RIP
He was 89. Pretty good for a big guy, although recent pictures showed him slimmed down a bit since his heyday.
Put 'em on your feet, give your dogs a treat, (bom-bom) What a comfortable shoe.
Yeah, it’s a non-sequitur, but somehow, it’s what jumped to my mind when I heard of Joe Don’s unfortunate passing.
He did a guest stand-in for Carroll O’Connor on TV’s In the Heat of the Night. Carroll had to have heart surgery at the time. I never really followed the guy’s career, but good rest to him.
Most of the attention his death is getting seems to be via MST3K fandom. He hated the way he got roasted on that show and I doubt he’d be happy about it.
Yeah, but if MST3K hadn’t riffed on those two movies of his, his memorial thread here would’ve been a couple of posts about Walking Tall, and one or two guest spots on this or that, and that’d be it.
Yeah, Walking Tall was is only noticeable starring role. He wasn’t even used in the sequels. He did have a lot of smaller parts but clearly type cast as a heavy. Not exactly a bad actor, but not in roles that would demonstrate any range if he had any.
Yeah, it’s funny how some folks like Joe Estevez see the value of being roasted on MST3K while others just take it personal.
He had a short run series Eischied whixh I remember because my mother was a fan.
I loved him as Darius Jedburgh in “Edge of Darkness.”
My dad was obsessed with that show. He claimed it was one of the best series ever made.
I would like to highly recommend Charlie Varick.
I liked him as Whitaker in my favorite Bond movie, The Living Daylights. Here are his two most memorable scenes.
In the first one, he shows his collection of statues of himself dressed as famous military leaders of the past, such as Hitler and Julius Caesar.
In the second one, he battles Bond in his museum.
“Q” had a knack for giving Bond just the right piece of gear for the occasion.
As if he read ahead in the script and knew that Bond didn’t need a pen that would explode if you inadvertently clicked it three times for this mission.
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