![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2025\/z051525rip_joe_don_baker.png\")
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It was announced today that Joe Don Baker died on May 7, 2025.\u00a0 No cause of death was given.\u00a0 Mr. Baker was 89.<\/p>\n
Joe Don Baker was a high school standout in football and basketball.\u00a0 He attended North Texas State College on a sports scholarship.\u00a0 Mr. Baker graduated with a BA in Business Administration.\u00a0 Joe Don Baker then served two years in the US Army.\u00a0 After his enlistment, Mr. Baker moved to New York City to attend the Actors Studio.<\/p>\n
Joe Don Baker began getting stage work as well as guest appearances on television shows.\u00a0 Mr. Baker’s big break came when he played Buford Pusser in Walking Tall<\/em>.\u00a0 By this point, Joe Don Baker was alternating between feature films and television roles, but Walking Tall<\/em> was the film that made him famous.<\/p>\n Some of the television projects that feature Joe Don Baker include: Honey West; Iron Horse; Judd for the Defense; The Felony Squad; Bonanza; Gunsmoke<\/em> (2 episodes); The Big Valley; Mod Squad; Bracken’s World; Lancer<\/em> (3 episodes); The F.B.I.; The Most Deadly Game; The High Chaparral; Mission Impossible; Welcome Home Soldier Boys; Ironside; That Certain Summer; Doc Elliott; The Streets of San Francisco; To Kill a Cop; Power; Eischied<\/em> (13 episodes); Edge of Darkness<\/em> (6 episodes); In the Heat of the Night<\/em> (4 episodes); Citizen Cohen; The Wild West; Traps; The Siege at Ruby Ridge; George Wallace; Poodle Springs<\/em> and The Cleaner<\/em>.<\/p>\n Some of Joe Don Bakers’ feature film appearances include: Cool Hand Luke; Guns of the Magnificent Seven; Wild Rovers; Junior Bonner; The Valachi Papers; Walking Tall; Charley Varrick; The Outfit; The Natural; Fletch; The Living Daylights; Cape Fear; Reality Bites; Congo; Goldeneye; Mars Attacks!; Tomorrow Never Dies; Joe Dirt; The Commission; The Dukes of Hazzard<\/i> and Mud.<\/i><\/p>\n It’s impossible for me to pinpoint when I first saw Joe Don Baker because he appeared in so many of the shows I watched as a kid.\u00a0 I do remember how much buzz he got for starring as Buford Pusser in Walking Tall<\/em>.\u00a0 I always enjoyed seeing Joe Don Baker show up in a show or movie, because he made everything he was in better.<\/p>\n Out thoughts and prayers go out to Joe Don Baker’s family, friends and fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was announced today that Joe Don Baker died on May 7, 2025.\u00a0 No cause of death was given.\u00a0 Mr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,54,57,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-rip","category-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38914,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38913\/revisions\/38914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}