Emmy award-winning actress Kathy Baker has enjoyed a career on screen and in theatre spanning almost 40 years. She has appeared in more than 50 films in supporting and leading roles.
Baker’s authenticity to her age has kept her afloat in an industry where actresses typically see a decline in roles as they get older.
“I’ve always believed that if you are willing to play your age that you will work, so it’s the thing of continuing to play your age and accepting it when you’re younger and you suddenly realize, ‘Oh, now I’m playing the mom, oh, I’m playing the grandma.’ Some parts are smaller,” she said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times nearly a decade ago.
With a recurring role in the recent Netflix series “The Ranch” as Joanne, a supporting character alongside a dysfunctional family, the 72-year-old performer shows she’s good as her word.
Baker cites a high school drama instructor as a significant influence in her desire to become a professional actress. She attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts Acting program, studied acting at the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1970s, and later earned a bachelor’s degree in French from UC Berkeley.
Baker began her acting career at San Francisco's Magic Theatre in 1983. The off-Broadway production of “Fool for Love” won her an Obie award and, that same year, she made a solid film debut co-starring in “The Right Stuff” as the wife of astronaut Alan Shepard. She later appeared in “Street Smart” as a sex worker, earning a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination. “Clean and Sober,” “Dad,” “Jacknife,” and “Edward Scissorhands” followed.
Baker then went on to star in the critically acclaimed “Picket Fences” from 1992 to 1996, for which she received three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Performances in “Touched by an Angel,” “Boston Public,” and “Door to Door” earned her three additional nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Other notable credits include “The Cider House Rules,” “Cold Mountain,” “13 Going on 30,” and “The Jane Austen Book Club.”