Diane Baker: what went wrong?

She was a mannequin with a teeny voice.

DL outed her as being the subject of a juicy blind item a few years ago: it was written by some guy who was doing a series of interviews with B-list actors of yesterday and Miss Baker apparently got pretty upset when he suggested she was one too. Apparently she considers herself to be of much greater importance in history of cinema than that.

But I did always love her hair.

Miss Baker? So wooden she didn't use Ponds, she used Johnson's polish.

She was trashy in The Carpetbaggers and Harlow.

I always liked her. Good actress but not a strong enough personality for lead roles. However, she consistently worked as her IMDB page will attest.

The only movies I've seen that she has been in are Strait Jacket and Silence if The Lambs.

who is the nut posting all the "what went wrong" threads?

The official terminology is WHET to....

They aren't the same questions, r7.

[R4] that is Carrol Baker , not Diane .

Oops, sorry, r9. Well, I liked her in Edward Scissorhands.

She had a big part in "Marnie".

She was FIRE in Krakatoa, East of Java!

Here's the great DL thread I mentioned above, titled: "Who is This "Deluded 1960s Starlet?"

Unfortunately the original blog post has been deleted but the great detective work by DL sleuths is still there, and there are plenty of quotes from the blog post included in there.

Hey! Thanks for resurrecting that. I was the OP of that thread.

R12 Except that the real Krakatoa, was WEST of Java. All that money spent on the film, and someone couldn't spend the time or money to get the directions correct, even in the film's title!

I saw it in Cinerama!

It was a tough era for a Diane to break big.

[quote] yet she was never given a chance to carry a movie.

She WAS given a chance.... and she failed.

Not exactly "perky". She was dull and respectable, for the most part. Occasionally played against type as in "Strait-Jacket", but only somewhat effectively. Destined to be the good girl sidekick, the sensible sister, etc. Held on to that helmet hairdo a little too long. I'm surprised that she didn't have some thankless wife role on long running dramatic series.

she was attractive but in a character actress distinctive way. She wasnt a great beauty so she wasnt ever going to be a big deal. That is probably why she had a long long career. there are worse things..............

Not really talented, not really pretty. Actually, she's a bit dull.

That's DOCTOR Diane Baker, to you bitches!

In a Playboy interview, Raquel Welch said that Baker could pose spread eagle naked and no one would care because she's not sexy. Baker obviously took offense.

R22=Joan Crawford

Interview with Baker in which Joan Crawford comes off as less monstrous and a bit more human than expected, while Hitchcock comes off as controlling and inappropriate as expected, though also a little pathetic at that point in the game.