# Diane Baker

Diane Carol Baker (born February 25, 1938) is an American actress, producer and educator whose career spanned over 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.
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.
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 | |
| 1959 | Journey to the Center of the Earth | Jenny Lindenbrook | |
| 1959 | The Best of Everything | April Morrison | |
| 1959 | Playhouse 90 | Shelia Cass | Episode: "In Lonely Expectation" |
| 1960 | The DuPont Show of the Month | Nurse Leora Tozer | Episode: "Arrowsmith" |
| 1960 | The Wizard of Baghdad | Princess Yasmin | |
| 1960 | Tess of the Storm Country | Tess MacLean | |
| 1961 | Follow the Sun | Helen Henderson | Episode: "Journey Into Darkness" |
| 1961 | Adventures in Paradise | Veronica Sanders | Episode: "Vendetta" |
| 1962 | Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man | Carolyn | |
| 1962 | The 300 Spartans | Ellas | |
| 1963 | The Doctors and the Nurses | Marjorie Ford | Episode: "Field of Battle" |
| 1963 | Nine Hours to Rama | Sheila | |
| 1963 | The Prize | Emily Stratman | |
| 1963 | Stolen Hours | Ellen | |
| 1963 | Mr. Novak | Mrs. Chase | Episode: "A Feeling for Friday" |
| 1963 | Route 66 | Elisa | Episode: "The Cruelest Sea of All" |
| 1963 | Route 66 | Marie Duplessis | Episode: "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!" |
| 1964 | Strait-Jacket | Carol Harbin | |
| 1964 | Marnie | Lil Mainwaring | |
| 1964 | Della | Jenny Chappell | Television movie |
| 1964 | Wagon Train | Alice Whitetree | Episode: "The Alice Whitetree Story" |
| 1964 | The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre | Vivia Mandour | Television movie |
| 1965 | Mirage | Shela | |
| 1965 | Inherit the Wind | Rachel Brown | Television movie |
| 1965 | The Big Valley | Hester | Episode: "By Fires Unseen" |
| 1966 | The Virginian | Linda Valence | Episode: "Linda" |
| 1966 | Sands of Beersheba | Susan | Alternative title: Thunder Over Israel |
| 1966 | Hawk | Mary Wheelis | Episode: "The Longleat Chronicles" |
| 1966 | The F.B.I. | Elyse Colton | Episode: "The Camel's Nose" |
| 1966 | The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones | Amilia Rathmore | Television movie |
| 1967 | The Fugitive | Jean Carlisle | Episodes: "The Judgement" (Parts 1 & 2) |
| 1967 | The Invaders | Kathy Adams | Episode: "Beachhead" |
| 1967 | 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 | |
| 1969 | Trial Run | Carole Trenet | Television movie |
| 1969 | The Virginian | Julie Oakes | Episode: "A Love to Remember" |
| 1969 | The Name of the Game | Elaine Brennan | Episode: "Give Till It Hurts" |
| 1969 | The D.A.: Murder One | Mary Brokaw | Television movie |
| 1970 | The Interns | Sheila Carmichael | Episode: "The Quality of Mercy" |
| 1970 | The Old Man Who Cried Wolf | Peggy Pulska | Television movie |
| 1971 | The Virginian | Nan Allen | Episode: "Nan Allen" |
| 1971 | Sarge | Carol Swanson | Episode: "The Badge or the Cross" |
| 1971 | Congratulations, It's a Boy! | Edye | Television movie |
| 1971 | A Little Game | Elaine Hamilton | Television movie |
| 1971 | Night Gallery | Lynn Alcott | Segment: "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" |
| 1972 | Killer by Night | Tracey Morrow | Television movie |
| 1972 | Love, American Style | Wendy | Segment: "Love and the Small Wedding" |
| 1973 | Love Story | Angie Burnett | Episode: "The Youngest Lovers" |
| 1973 | Here We Go Again | Susan Evans | 13 episodes |
| 1974 | A Tree Grows in Brooklyn | Katie Nolan | Television movie |
| 1974 | Medical Center | Three-Cornered Cage | Episode: "Three-Cornered Cage" |
| 1974 | The ABC Afternoon Playbreak | Diana | Episode: "Can I Save My Children?" |
| 1975 | Lucas Tanner | Jessica Atkins | Episode: "Why Not a Happy Ending?" |
| 1975 | Marcus Welby, M.D. | Sister Anne | Episode: "The Medea Factor" |
| 1975 | The Streets of San Francisco | Inspector Irene Martin | Episode: "The Cat's Paw" |
| 1975 | The Dream Makers | Mary Stone | Television movie |
| 1976 | Police Woman | Cynthia Lambert | Episode: "The Pawn Shop" |
| 1976 | Baker's Hawk | Jenny Baker | |
| 1976 | Columbo | Joanna Clay | Episode: "Last Salute to the Commodore" |
| 1977 | Barnaby Jones | Pat Halston | Episode: "The Wife Beater" |
| 1977 | Kojak | Irene Van Patten | 2 episodes |
| 1978 | The Love Boat | Ruth Newman | Episode: "Pacific Princess Overtures..." |
| 1978 | ABC Afterschool Special | Carrie Williams | Episode: "One of a Kind" |
| 1980 | The Pilot | Pat Simpson | |
| 1980 | 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 | |
| 1991 | The Haunted | Lorraine Warren | Television movie |
| 1992 | Mann & Machine | Delores Peterson | Episode: "Water, Water Everywhere" |
| 1992 | Perry Mason: The Case of the Heartbroken Bride | Laura Parris | Television movie |
| 1992 | Murder, She Wrote | Mary Forsythe | Episode: "A Christmas Secret" |
| 1993 | Twenty Bucks | Ruth Adams | |
| 1993 | The Joy Luck Club | Mrs. Jordan | |
| 1994 | Imaginary Crimes | Abigail Tate | |
| 1995 | A Walton Wedding | Charlotte Gilchrist | Television movie |
| 1995 | Chicago Hope | Ellen Rolston | Episode: "Rise from the Dead" |
| 1995 | The Net | Mrs. Bennett | |
| 1996 | The Cable Guy | Mrs. Kovacs | |
| 1996 | Courage Under Fire | Louise Boylar | |
| 1997 | Murder at 1600 | Kitty Neil | |
| 1998 | About Sarah | Lila Hollingsworth | Television movie |
| 1998 | The Nanny | Roberta | Episode: "Sara's Parents" |
| 2000 | ER | Louise Duffy | Episode: "The Domino Heart" |
| 2000 | Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis | Rose Kennedy | Television movie |
| 2001 | Harrison's Flowers | Mary Francis | |
| 2001 | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | Margo Nelson | Episode: "Inheritance" |
| 2002 | First Monday | Arlene Braken | 3 episodes |
| 2002 | On the Roof | Mrs. Arnott | |
| 2003 | Dragnet | Rebecca Barton | Episode: "The Brass Ring" |
| 2003 | 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 |
| 2005 | Unscripted | Diane | 5 episodes |
| 2005 | 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 |