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person_profile-Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker Died at age: 93

Actor | Producer

Fullname:

Roy Ward Baker

Date of Birth:

Dec 19, 1916

Country of birth:

England

Died:

Oct 05, 2010

Biography of

Roy Ward Baker

    Roy Ward Baker is an English film director born in London on 19 December 1916. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for best foreign English language film in 1959. His later career was varied, and included many horror films and television shows.

    Baker's early career, from 1934 to 1939, was spent working for Gainsborough Pictures, a British film production company based in Islington, North London, famous for its prestige productions. His first jobs were menial - making tea for crew members, for example - but by 1938 he had risen through the ranks to work as assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.

    He served in the army during World War II, until transferring to the Army Kinematograph Unit in 1943 in order to make better use of skills developed in his pre-war career producing documentaries and teaching materials for troops. One of his superiors at the time was novelist Eric Ambler. It was he who gave Baker his first big break directing The October Man, from an Ambler screenplay, in 1947. Ambler also adapted Walter Lord's A Night to Remember for Baker's 1958 screen version.

    During the early 1950s, Baker worked for three years in Hollywood where he directed Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) and Robert Ryan in 3D film noir Inferno (1953). He returned to the UK for the latter part of the decade, but defected to television in the early 1960s.

    He directed episodes of The Avengers, The Saint and The Champions - all adventure series created with an eye on the American market. The low-budget ethic of television production made him well-suited to his next career move into cheaply produced but lavish-looking British horror films. He directed, amongst others, Quatermass and the Pit (1967) The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Scars of Dracula (1970) for Hammer, and Asylum (1972) for Amicus.

    In the latter part of the 1970s he returned to television, and throughout the 1980s continued to work in Television.  He retired in 1992.

Photos of

Roy Ward Baker

Photos ( 1 Photos

Filmography of

Roy Ward Baker

Found 40 Movies in total

... 1984

... 1981

... 1979

The Switch

Director

... 1976

... 1974

... 1974

... 1973

... 1973

Asylum

Director

... 1972

... 1971

... 1970

... 1970

... 1970

... 1969

... 1969

... 1968

... 1968

... 1967

... 1963

The Valiant

Director

... 1962

... 1961

... 1961

... 1958

... 1957

... 1956

Jacqueline

Director

... 1956

... 1955

Inferno

Director

... 1953

... 1952

... 1952

... 1952

... 1951

... 1950

... 1950

... 1949

... 1948

... 1947

Night Train to Munich

Second Unit Director

... 1940

The Lady Vanishes

Assistant Director

... 1938