Memories of Joe Don Baker

Joe Don Baker is a name many of us have seen in movie credits, but it is also a name that can be found in the 1954 Taog, Groesbeck High School’s yearbook.

As a stagehand and extra in high school plays, Baker was not always the star of the show. He was soft-spoken and shy despite his linebacker build and athletic ability. When Baker auditioned for the lead role of sheriff in a high school play, he was not chosen for the part.

“I think that’s what inspired Joe Don to be an actor, when he got beaten by our Jack,” said former classmate and friend Jerry Pelham, patting Jack Stone on the back with a chuckle. Baker's friends agree this small failure may have been the force that pushed Baker toward a largely successful acting career.

“He got the part of the sheriff in Walking Tall,” Baker’s friend and former neighbor Larry Smith added.

In the well-received movie, Baker played the role of Buford Pusser, a man who, upon being elected sheriff, unapologetically and brutally attacked crime and corruption in his small town at a high personal cost.

“Walking Tall was great,” Baker said. “I got to meet Buford, hang around with him a lot, and that did a lot for my career here in America.”

Indeed it did. The 1973 film was a huge hit in theaters, kick-starting Baker’s career though he had already put in almost a decade of work, acting in plays, TV specials, and Western movies. However, before he made it to the big screen, Baker was just an average Joe growing up in this small town we call home.

At the age of 12, Baker came to live with his aunt, Anna Thompson, in Groesbeck after his mother passed away. Beloved “Auntie,” as he called her, helped the shy, overweight boy come out of his shell, taught him to never give up, and provided for his every want and need.

Baker became fast friends with Larry Smith, who lived two doors down, and classmates Jerry Pelham and Wendell Pool to name a few. The crew spent most of their free time outside, riding motor scooters around town and camping on Mrs. Thompson’s ranch.

“At the time, even though we were young, parents would let you carry shotguns out,” Pelham remembers. “We would build a big fire, fish a little in the tank, do a little hunting if there was a rabbit around.”

The boys would tell ghost stories at night, up on the tank dam, so scared they sat back to back with their shotguns at the ready. Though the camping trips were overnight, none of them got much sleep.

In the late 1940s, when the boys were 13, Baker, Pelham, and another friend were taken by Ms. Anna to see Southern Methodist University play Texas A&M University in a football game.

“When Joe Don liked somebody, he really liked ‘em, and he liked All-American, Doak Walker,” Pelham said. “After the game, I thought we were going back to the car and Joe Don says ‘no, I’m going to go get some autographs.’ We stayed there for two hours to get autographs. He got one, I think the guy’s name was Johnny Champion, but didn’t get Doak Walker’s.”

“My hero in those days was Doak Walker, who played for SMU,” Baker confirmed. “[They] won a lot of games in the fourth quarter when it looked like they were going to lose, but they never quit and that’s what I learned from Doak. In my career and my life I’ve never given up, I owe him that lesson very much.”

In high school, sports took up a majority of their free time. The friends and classmates became teammates on the football field, of which Baker was a Co-Captain. He also participated in basketball and was a class officer part of his high school career.

“He was a great athlete in high school, a linebacker,” Smith shared. “[Baker] said he was too slow and not big enough to play in college, so he didn’t try out.”

As a teenager, Baker worked at the local ice plant. According to Pelham, “he went into work at 10 o’clock and worked all night.”

“The blocks were about 4 1/2 feet long and weighed 315 lbs.,” Smith said. “Joe Don had to lift one end and stand each one up for storage. I guess that’s where he developed his broad shoulders.”

Baker was one of the first kids in high school to have a car, a black four-door Ford his Auntie bought for him. When Baker and his friends weren’t on the field or court, they enjoyed going to watch movies at the Limestone Theatre in Groesbeck.

“We also had the lake, the pavilion out at Fort Parker,” Baker remembered. “It was a place we could go to dance and meet kids. They had soft drinks and music, an indoor and outdoor dance place on the pavilion. A lot of us from Mexia and Groesbeck used to hang out there all the time.”

Back then, dancing was always done in pairs and Smith remembers Baker as a wonderful dancer, holding partners close. Pelham commented on Baker’s Elvis Presley impersonation in regards to dancing and singing, and wasn’t the only one who remembered Baker for that skill.

“I ran into a guy over in Waco and we got to talking,” Pelham said. “I said I was from Groesbeck originally, and he said ‘well then you know a friend of mine, Joe Don Baker. I remember him because he could really do a good impersonation of Elvis Presley.’”

The summer before their senior year, Jerry Pelham’s aunt had plans to drive to Sacramento, California to visit relatives and allowed Pelham’s friends Baker, Pool, and Ethel Ann de Cordova to make the trip with her. While de Cordova spent time in LA, the boys explored the Pelham family ranch where they hunted and fished for 3 days before beginning the trip back to Groesbeck.

“I do remember going up Pike’s Peak in the back end of a Plymouth,” Pelham said, wide-eyed. “There’s a steep side and a mountainside as you make your way around the curves up Pike’s Peak. We’d look down one side and see ‘oh, there’s nothing,’ so we three boys would rush and scoot over to the mountainous side of the seat.”

As is often the case after graduating, the friends took different paths. Pelham and Stone were roommates at Texas A&M University; Pelham went on to work for the Internal Revenue Service and Stone worked as an examiner and auditor for the US Department of Agriculture. Smith, a grade below them, later attended various colleges before becoming a successful rancher.

Baker attended North Texas State College, presently known as the University of North Texas, and while there found himself at tryouts for a play the college would be putting on.

“I went up just acting like I was coming there to see my friend,” Baker said. “And then they said, ‘Anybody else want to try out?’ and I raised my hand, and that was the biggest moment of my career I suppose: when I realized I wanted to be an actor.”

He landed a small part, and during his time at the college acted in other plays. After graduating with a business degree in 1958, Baker served a two-year tour of duty with the US Army in Washington D.C. and filled his free time with acting classes and lessons. In New York, Baker spent a few years taking more classes before getting into the Acting Studio and landing roles on Broadway. Searching for a stable income, he went to Hollywood, got an agent, and started acting in TV movies and westerns, eventually landing the lead in Walking Tall. Some of Baker’s more notable movies include Cool Hand Luke (with Paul Newman), The Natural (with Robert Redford), Fletch (with Chevy Chase) and Joe Dirt (with David Spade), to name a few.

“I think my favorite movie that I’ve acted in was a movie for TV in London, England called Edge of Darkness.” Baker said. “It was a six-hour mini-series and I just had a wonderful time. It was a great part, a great script, great actors, and a great director, Martin Campbell. I got several shows there in England. So I’d go over there to work then visit the continent again. I could have done that all my life I think, or at least for years and been happy.”

In 1985, Baker was nominated for best actor by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for his performance in Edge of Darkness, but was narrowly beaten out by Englishman and co-star, Ben Peck. Baker’s career includes more than 50 movies in starring and character roles, plus many roles in TV series and specials.

Even after achieving a certain level of fame and success in acting, Joe Don Baker made an effort to stay in touch with his high school buddies from GHS. He reached out to Smith while working on the movie “Getting Even” for suggestions on where to film in Dallas, then invited Smith and his wife to the premiere to express his gratitude for the help. Baker attended a homecoming ceremony and sends Christmas cards to Smith and Pelham every year. Though he now lives in a suburb of Los Angeles, California and doesn’t return to Groesbeck much, his friends speak of him fondly and often.