Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Baker found success playing both leading and supporting roles, including a mafia hitman in Charley Varrick (1973), a brute force detective in Mitchell (1975), a legendary baseball player in The Natural (1984), a police chief in the Chevy Chase comedy Fletch (1985), and a morally dubious private investigator in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991).
He played both a villain and an ally in three James Bond films: as Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights (1987) with Timothy Dalton, and as CIA agent Jack Wade in GoldenEye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) with Pierce Brosnan.
For his portrayal of offbeat CIA agent Darius Jedburgh in the BBC television serial Edge of Darkness (1985), he was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor.
He was also nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Alabama governor Big Jim Folsom in the made-for-television film George Wallace (1997).
[2] He played basketball and football (as linebacker and co-captain) at Groesbeck High School,[2] and attended North Texas State College in Denton on a sports scholarship, where he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.
In 1973, Baker had his breakthrough playing sherriff Buford Pusser in the biographical vigilante action film Walking Tall, directed by Phil Karlson.
[9][10] Released in February as a regional exploitation picture, Walking Tall connected with audiences and became an unexpected hit, circulating for national distribution with a new TV ad campaign using the slogan, "When was the last time you stood up and applauded a movie?"
Martin Scorsese directed him as a private detective in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear, hired by protagonist Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) to protect his family from psychopathic ex-convict Max Cady (Robert De Niro).
In 1995 and 1997, Baker returned to the series, this time playing a different character, CIA agent Jack Wade, in GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, with Pierce Brosnan as Bond.