Diane Baker

Diane Baker
Diane Baker in 2023
Born	Diane Carol Baker (1938-02-25) February 25, 1938 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education	Van Nuys High School
Occupations	Actress producer
Years active	1959–2013
Known for	The Diary of Anne Frank Journey to the Center of the Earth The Prize Marnie Mirage

Diane Carol Baker (born February 25, 1938) is an American actress, producer and educator whose career spanned nearly 50 years.

Early life

Baker was born February 25, 1938 at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and raised in the Los Angeles neighborhoods of North Hollywood and Studio City. She is the daughter of Dorothy Helen Harrington, who had appeared in several early Marx Brothers movies, and automobile salesman Clyde Lucius Baker. Baker has two younger sisters, Patricia and Cheryl. At age 18, after graduating from Van Nuys High School in 1956, Baker moved to New York to study acting with Charles Conrad and ballet with Nina Fonaroff.

Career

After securing a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox in 1958, Baker made her film debut when she was chosen by director George Stevens to play Margot Frank in the 1959 motion picture The Diary of Anne Frank. In the same year, she starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth with James Mason and Pat Boone; and in The Best of Everything with Hope Lange and Joan Crawford.

Publicity photo for Marnie (1964)

Other Fox films in which Baker appeared include the assassination thriller Nine Hours to Rama, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, and The 300 Spartans. Her television work, which began in the 1960s, includes appearances on Follow the Sun, Bus Stop, Adventures in Paradise, The Lloyd Bridges Show, The Nurses, The Invaders (in the first episode), and two episodes of Route 66.

Finally out of her contract with Fox after starring in the fourth screen version of Grace Miller White's novel Tess of the Storm Country and The 300 Spartans (1962), Baker appeared in Stolen Hours, a 1963 remake of Dark Victory (Mirisch Corp. and United Artists), and, the same year, opposite Paul Newman and Elke Sommer in The Prize (MGM). From 1963 to 1966, Baker had a recurring role on the medical drama Dr. Kildare.

Cast of TV's Here We Go Again, from top: Dick Gautier, Nita Talbot, Larry Hagman and Diane Baker (1973)

In 1964, she co-starred with Joan Crawford in both Strait-Jacket, William Castle's thriller about an axe murderess, and an unsold television pilot Royal Bay, released to theaters as Della. Alfred Hitchcock cast her in his film Marnie (1964) as Lil Mainwaring, the sister-in-law of Mark Rutland (Sean Connery). She co-starred with Gregory Peck and Walter Matthau in the thriller Mirage (1965), directed by Edward Dmytryk, and in Krakatoa, East of Java (1969) with Maximilian Schell. In the TV movie Western The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones (1966), she played the role of a woman who falls in love with a drifter (Robert Horton) who is deputized by a dying marshal to take two killers (one of whom is played by Sal Mineo) to a distant jail.

In August 1967, Baker played David Janssen's love interest in the two-part finale of The Fugitive, which became the most-watched show in the history of episodic television up until that time. In 1968, she co-starred with Dean Jones in the Disney film The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit. In January 1970, she had the lead guest-starring female role as Princess Francesca in the only three-episode mission of Mission: Impossible. In 1973, Baker co-starred in ABC sitcom Here We Go Again. The series was canceled after one season. In 1976, she played the frequently drunken daughter of the title character of the Columbo episode "Last Salute to the Commodore".

In the decades after Mirage, she appeared frequently on television and began producing films, including the drama film Never Never Land (1980) and the miniseries A Woman of Substance (1985), in which she played Laura. She reemerged on the big screen in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as Senator Ruth Martin. Baker also appeared in the films The Joy Luck Club, The Cable Guy, The Net and A Mighty Wind. She guest-starred in four episodes of House in 2005, 2008, and twice in 2012 as Blythe House, the mother of the title character.

Baker spent more than a decade teaching acting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She was formerly the executive director of the School of Motion Pictures-Television and the School of Acting.

Personal life

Baker has dated Warren Beatty, Gardner McKay, Frank Langella, Michael Lerner and John Saxon.

Selected TV and filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1959	The Diary of Anne Frank	Margot Frank
	Journey to the Center of the Earth	Jenny Lindenbrook
	The Best of Everything	April Morrison
	Playhouse 90	Shelia Cass	Episode: "In Lonely Expectation"
1960	The DuPont Show of the Month	Nurse Leora Tozer	Episode: "Arrowsmith"
	The Wizard of Baghdad	Princess Yasmin
	Tess of the Storm Country	Tess MacLean
1961	Follow the Sun	Helen Henderson	Episode: "Journey Into Darkness"
	Adventures in Paradise	Veronica Sanders	Episode: "Vendetta"
1962	Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man	Carolyn
	The 300 Spartans	Ellas
1963	The Doctors and the Nurses	Marjorie Ford	Episode: "Field of Battle"
	Nine Hours to Rama	Sheila
	The Prize	Emily Stratman
	Stolen Hours	Ellen
	Mr. Novak	Mrs. Chase	Episode: "A Feeling for Friday"
	Route 66	Elisa	Episode: "The Cruelest Sea of All"
	Route 66	Marie Duplessis	Episode: "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!"
1964	Strait-Jacket	Carol Harbin
	Marnie	Lil Mainwaring
	Della	Jenny Chappell	Television movie
	Wagon Train	Alice Whitetree	Episode: "The Alice Whitetree Story"
	The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre	Vivia Mandour	Television movie
1965	Mirage	Shela
	Inherit the Wind	Rachel Brown	Television movie
	The Big Valley	Hester	Episode: "By Fires Unseen"
1966	The Virginian	Linda Valence	Episode: "Linda"
	Sands of Beersheba	Susan	Alternative title: Thunder Over Israel
	Hawk	Mary Wheelis	Episode: "The Longleat Chronicles"
	The F.B.I.	Elyse Colton	Episode: "The Camel's Nose"
	The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones	Amilia Rathmore	Television movie
1967	The Fugitive	Jean Carlisle	Episodes: "The Judgement" (Parts 1 & 2)
	The Invaders	Kathy Adams	Episode: "Beachhead"
	Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre	Laney	Episode: "Free of Charge"
1967, 1971	Bonanza	Mary Wharton / Norma O' Casey	2 episodes
1968	The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit	Suzie "S.J." Clemens
1969	Krakatoa, East of Java	Laura Travis
	Trial Run	Carole Trenet	Television movie
	The Virginian	Julie Oakes	Episode: "A Love to Remember"
	The Name of the Game	Elaine Brennan	Episode: "Give Till It Hurts"
	The D.A.: Murder One	Mary Brokaw	Television movie
1970	The Interns	Sheila Carmichael	Episode: "The Quality of Mercy"
	The Old Man Who Cried Wolf	Peggy Pulska	Television movie
1971	The Virginian	Nan Allen	Episode: "Nan Allen"
	Sarge	Carol Swanson	Episode: "The Badge or the Cross"
	Congratulations, It's a Boy!	Edye	Television movie
	A Little Game	Elaine Hamilton	Television movie
	Night Gallery	Lynn Alcott	Segment: "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar"
1972	Killer by Night	Tracey Morrow	Television movie
	Love, American Style	Wendy	Segment: "Love and the Small Wedding"
1973	Love Story	Angie Burnett	Episode: "The Youngest Lovers"
	Here We Go Again	Susan Evans	13 episodes
1974	A Tree Grows in Brooklyn	Katie Nolan	Television movie
	Medical Center	Three-Cornered Cage	Episode: "Three-Cornered Cage"
	The ABC Afternoon Playbreak	Diana	Episode: "Can I Save My Children?"
1975	Lucas Tanner	Jessica Atkins	Episode: "Why Not a Happy Ending?"
	Marcus Welby, M.D.	Sister Anne	Episode: "The Medea Factor"
	The Streets of San Francisco	Inspector Irene Martin	Episode: "The Cat's Paw"
	The Dream Makers	Mary Stone	Television movie
1976	Police Woman	Cynthia Lambert	Episode: "The Pawn Shop"
	Baker's Hawk	Jenny Baker
	Columbo	Joanna Clay	Episode: "Last Salute to the Commodore"
1977	Barnaby Jones	Pat Halston	Episode: "The Wife Beater"
	Kojak	Irene Van Patten	2 episodes
1978	The Love Boat	Ruth Newman	Episode: "Pacific Princess Overtures..."
	ABC Afterschool Special	Carrie Williams	Episode: "One of a Kind"
1980	The Pilot	Pat Simpson
	Fugitive Family	Ellen 'Ellie' Roberts	Television movie
1981	Trapper John, M.D.	Mrs. Forsyte	Episode: "The Albatross"
1982	The Blue and the Gray	Evelyn Hale	Miniseries
1983	Fantasy Island	Fran Woods	Episode: "Saturday's Child..."
1985	A Woman of Substance	Laura O'Neill	Miniseries
1987	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Helen Welker-Summers	Episode: "Little Miss Perfect"
1987	Murder, She Wrote	Eleanor Thane	Episode: "Simon Says, Color Me Dead"
1990	The Closer	Beatrice Grant
1990	Murder, She Wrote	Anna Louisa Barlow	Episode: "The Great Twain Robbery"
1991	The Silence of the Lambs	Senator Ruth Martin
	The Haunted	Lorraine Warren	Television movie
1992	Mann & Machine	Delores Peterson	Episode: "Water, Water Everywhere"
	Perry Mason: The Case of the Heartbroken Bride	Laura Parris	Television movie
	Murder, She Wrote	Mary Forsythe	Episode: "A Christmas Secret"
1993	Twenty Bucks	Ruth Adams
	The Joy Luck Club	Mrs. Jordan
1994	Imaginary Crimes	Abigail Tate
1995	A Walton Wedding	Charlotte Gilchrist	Television movie
	Chicago Hope	Ellen Rolston	Episode: "Rise from the Dead"
	The Net	Mrs. Bennett
1996	The Cable Guy	Mrs. Kovacs
	Courage Under Fire	Louise Boylar
1997	Murder at 1600	Kitty Neil
1998	About Sarah	Lila Hollingsworth	Television movie
	The Nanny	Roberta	Episode: "Sara's Parents"
2000	ER	Louise Duffy	Episode: "The Domino Heart"
	Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis	Rose Kennedy	Television movie
2001	Harrison's Flowers	Mary Francis
	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Margo Nelson	Episode: "Inheritance"
2002	First Monday	Arlene Braken	3 episodes
	On the Roof	Mrs. Arnott
2003	Dragnet	Rebecca Barton	Episode: "The Brass Ring"
	A Mighty Wind	Supreme Folk Defense Lawyer	Credited last but no face-time
2005	The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam	Miss Taylor	Alternative title: Empire Rising
	Unscripted	Diane	5 episodes
	House	Blythe House	Episodes: "Daddy's Boy" , Birthmarks
2008	Harrison Montgomery	Mrs. Cutsworth
2010	Lie to Me	Judge Quinn	Episode: "The Whole Truth"
2012	Hemingway & Gellhorn	Mrs. Gellhorn
2013	The Surrogate	Louise	Television movie

Awards and nominations

Golden Globe Awards

Year	Category	Nominated work	Result
1960	Most Promising Newcomer – Female	The Diary of Anne Frank	Nominated
1964	Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture	The Prize	Nominated

Primetime Emmy Award

Year	Category	Nominated work	Result
1966	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series	Inherit the Wind	Nominated
1985	Outstanding Limited Series	A Woman of Substance	Nominated

Daytime Emmy Award

Year	Category	Nominated work	Result
1975	Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Special	The ABC Afternoon Playbreak: "Can I Save My Children?"	Nominated

External links

• Diane Baker at IMDb 
• Diane Baker at the TCM Movie Database
• Diane Baker at Rotten Tomatoes
• Diane Baker at AllMovie