Kathy Baker

Actor

• Born: June 8, 1950
• Place of Birth: Midland, Texas

Contribution: Kathy Baker is an award-winning American actor known for her work in Street Smart (1987), Clean and Sober (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), and the television series Picket Fences (1992–96). Her later works included the film The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019) and a role in the television series Orphan Black: Echoes (2023).

Background

Kathy Baker was raised as a Quaker in New Mexico. She decided to become an actress when she was only five years old she enrolled in theater lessons when she was ten and participated in plays throughout her youth. While Baker loved acting, she never thought she would be a film or television actor. Instead, she looked up to Geraldine Page and, like her, wanted to perform on stage.

Baker spent a year studying drama at the California Institute of Arts before deciding that she needed a break from acting. She dropped out and enrolled in the University of California, Berkley, where she studied French. After graduation, Baker went abroad for a few months and enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu to study pastry cooking.

Baker fell in love with France, and what was supposed to be a six-month stay quickly turned into two years. At that point, Baker was not sure whether baking was going to be her career or just her day job. She returned to the United States, married, began baking professionally, and gave up acting. However, when the marriage did not last, she found herself still attracted to the stage. Baker thus began to pursue acting as a career.

Career

Staying true to her childhood dreams, Baker began working as a stage actress. Her first professional performance was in the lead role of May in the Off-Broadway production Fool for Love (1983), for which she won an Obie Award. Her performance impressed the play’s author, Sam Shepard, and he secured her a role as astronaut Alan Shepard’s wife, Louise, in the movie The Right Stuff (1983), giving Baker her first foray into the world of film.

Baker went back to the theater for a time before being offered a starring role in the film A Killing Affair (1986) as Maggie Gresham, an abused housewife who falls for her murdered husband’s killer. After this, Baker found steady work as an actor. She starred with Christopher Reeve and Morgan Freeman in the 1987 crime drama Street Smart, in which she plays Punchy, a New York prostitute. The following year, she starred with Morgan Freeman again in the award-winning film Clean and Sober (1988), in which she plays Charlie Standers, a recovering alcoholic and domestic-abuse victim. Baker then landed another starring role, this time opposite Robert De Niro and Ed Harris in the drama Jacknife (1989).

The following year Baker starred in the film Mister Frost (1990) and the television movie The Image (1990). She also landed a major role as the overly flirtatious suburban wife Joyce in the film Edward Scissorhands (1990). The role offered Baker a chance to display her comedic talents and was a departure from the grittier film characters she portrayed in the mid- to late 1980s.

In the 1990s, Baker starred as town doctor Jill Brock in David E. Kelley’s prime-time television series Picket Fences (1992–96). Having grown used to acting in films and theaters, she was initially reluctant to accept a television role. However, Baker changed her mind after she read the script and discovered that her character was as interesting and well developed as any in film. Her performance in Picket Fences earned her three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. The show itself won fourteen Emmy Awards, including two for best drama series, in 1993 and 1994.

Baker refrained from taking on time-consuming roles while starring in Picket Fences, choosing instead to devote most of her time to the show and a few select stage roles. However, once the show ended its run in 1996, she starred in the television movie Not in This Town (1997) and made guest appearances on several television series, including Ally McBeal (1997). The following year, she landed the role of Priscilla Salyers in the 1998 crime drama Oklahoma City: A Survivor’s Story. In 1999 Baker starred in several television films, including A Season for Miracles and Shake, Rattle and Roll: An American Love Story, and appeared in the films A Little Inside and The Cider House Rules.

Between 2001 and 2002, Baker guest starred as uptight teacher Meredith Peters in fourteen episodes of Boston Public, another David E. Kelley production. During the first season, Baker’s character is handcuffed in the basement by her troubled son and ends up cutting off her own hand in order to escape.

In the 2000s, Baker landed roles in various films such as Assassination Tango (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), Nine Lives (2005), and The Jane Austen Book Club (2007). She also made guest appearances in numerous television series, including Monk (2004) Nip/Tuck (2005), Gilmore Girls (2007), Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (2007), Grey’s Anatomy (2008), and Saving Grace (2009), and had roles in several television movies.

Between 2005 and 2010, Baker appeared in several episodes of the television series Medium as Marjorie Dubois, mother-in-law of the title character, Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette). In 2011, she starred in the Lifetime series Against the Wall as Sheila Kowalski, mother of internal-affairs detective Abby Kowalski (Rachael Carpani) and her three brothers, all of whom are members of the Chicago Police Department. Baker then took on a new role as executive producer of the 2015 film The Party Is Over, in which she also stars.

In the latter half of the 2010s, Baker had acting roles in a number of television shows, including the miniseries Big Time in Hollywood, FL (2015), Colony (2016), the TV movie Sister Cities (2016), The Ranch (2016–19), I'm Sorry (2017–19), Love (2018), the TV movie Paterno (2018), and Chicago Med (2019). Her film appearances during this time included The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017), Anyone Home? (2018) and The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019). In the early 2020s, Baker appeared as Melissa Miller in the television series Orphan Black: Echoes (2023).

Impact

Kathy Baker is an award-winning actor whose work in many well-known films and television shows has been praised by critics and her peers alike. In her starring role as Dr. Jill Brock in Picket Fences, Baker was part of a production that often dealt with complex issues and controversial subject matter. In this role, she also took part in David E. Kelley’s first ever crossover episode (an episode in which characters from one television series are integrated into the storyline of another series), appearing with another Picket Fences character in an episode of Chicago Hope that aired in November 1994.

Personal Life

Between 1985 and 1999, Baker was married to Donald Camillieri, with whom she has two sons. In 2003 she married Boston Public director Steven Robman.

Principal Work

Film

Street Smart, 1987

Clean and Sober, 1988

Edward Scissorhands, 1990

The Cider House Rules, 1999

Cold Mountain, 2003

Nine Lives, 2005

The Ballad of Lefty Brown, 2017

The Art of Racing in the Rain, 2019

Television

Picket Fences, 1992–96

Boston Public, 2001–2

Against the Wall, 2011

The Ranch, 2016–19

Theater

Fool for Love, 1983

Desire under the Elms, 1984

Aunt Dan and Lemon, 1986

Bibliography

Baker, Kathy. “An Interview with Kathy Baker.” Interview by Liane Balaban. Believer. Believer, 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 July 2013.

Guthman, Edward. “Street Smart Prostitute: Local Actress Kathy Baker’s Star Rises.” San Francisco Chronicle 29 Mar. 1987, Sunday Datebook sec.: 30+. Print.

"Kathy Baker." Internet Movie Database, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000834/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Rice, Lynette. “Going Out on a Limb.” Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly, 1 Dec. 2001. Web. 12 July 2013.

Sheridan, Patricia. “Patricia Sheridan’s Breakfast with . . . Kathy Baker.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. PG, 26 Sept. 2011. Web. 12 July 2013.

Taitz, Sonia. “Kathy Baker’s Presence Shakes Up a Movie.” Orlando Sentinel. Tribune Newspaper, 7 Apr. 1989. Web. 12 July 2013.