Joe Don Baker, Star of ‘Walking Tall,’ Dies at 89
Joe Don Baker, the actor best known for his role as Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, passed away on May 7, 2025. He was 89 years old. No cause of death has been given. Baker had first big break in 1972, when he was cast as the brother of Steve McQueen‘s character in Sam Peckinpah‘s Junior Bonner.
He was also known for playing two very different characters in Bond films: First he played a villain in the 1987 film The Living Daylights, then returned as a good guy, CIA agent Jack Wade, in 1995’s GoldenEye and 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies.
Everett Collection
Born on Feb. 12, 1936, in Groesbeck, Texas, Baker was a football player in high school and got acting bug while attending North Texas State College. After graduating and serving for two years in the U.S. Army, he began to pursue acting and was accepted into The Actors Studio in New York City. He began his career on Broadway, eventually moving to Los Angeles and guest-starring on Westerns including Gunsmoke and Bonanza.
United Artists/Everett Collection
In 1985, he starred as Darius Jedburgh in the six-hour BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness and once said that he could have played that role for his entire life and been happy. He also appeared as a cop in the series Eischied and In the Heat of the Night.
He was married to Maria Dolores Rivero-Torres from 1969 until their 1980 divorce. He had no children.
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Wild West- Heroes & Villains
November 2022
Celebrates the unique sense of justice, compassion and adventure in the Old West as seen on TV and in the movies
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