Joe Don Baker (’58), 89, a film and television actor for more than 40 years whose credits included the leading role in the 1973 movie Walking Tall, died May 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. 

Coming to UNT from Groesbeck High School, he served as president of the freshman class and was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. He said it was in his last semester at North Texas that he realized he wanted to be an actor — he played a racketeer in the College Players’ production of Detective Story. He received UNT’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1994. 

After graduating with a business degree in production management, he served two years in the U.S. Army and then studied at the Actors Studio in New York, working in theater there before heading to Hollywood. He made his career as a character actor, playing heroes and villains alike. In 1985, he received a best actor nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for his performance as a flamboyant American CIA agent in what he later called his favorite show — Edge of Darkness, a miniseries filmed in London.

When he retired in 2012, he’d acted in more than 50 movies, including three Bond films. In his last role, he played Matthew McConaughey’s vengeful father in 2012’s Mud and won the Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award as part of the ensemble cast.