[2] His father was an English businessman and honorary vice consul and his mother an Irish Red Cross nurse who moved to Bulgaria to help fight cholera.

He portrayed the character of George King in Dennis Potter's The Bone Grinder (1968),[3] a metaphor for the decline of the British Empire and the rise of American power in the post-war world.

Martin, author of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was later adapted into TV's Game of Thrones, has stated that the historical Tiberius and Baker's performance in particular were part of the inspiration for his character Stannis Baratheon.

[6] He also appeared in The Baron, Survivors, Minder in Series 1's You Gotta Have Friends, Coronation Street (as brewery owner Cecil Newton), in the Doctor Who story Full Circle and as twin brothers in a 2005 episode of Midsomer Murders titled "The House in the Woods".

His major stage credits include a season with the Old Vic company (1959–61), where he played Bolingbroke in Richard II, Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest and Warwick in Saint Joan.

[6] In 1980 Baker wrote Fatal Spring, a play for television dealing with lives of poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves; this appeared on BBC 2 on 7 November 1980.

Baker was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1995 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel during a photo shoot on board a boat at Port Solent on the Hampshire coast.

[9] In 2007, Baker was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his charitable work helping establish a youth club in his home village.

His granddaughter Kim Sherwood is a writer; her debut novel, Testament, was inspired by her paternal grandmother's experience of the Holocaust as well as her grief over Baker's death.