George Baker had the bearing and the voice of the officer class, and spent a career lending them out: to a Bond who could not speak, to a Roman emperor, and for thirteen years to a country policeman who was allowed to be wrong.
Fi1m perspective
Halfway through On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), George Lazenby's Bond goes undercover as Sir Hilary Bray, a genealogist, and when he opens his mouth George Baker's voice comes out. Baker plays the real Bray for a scene or two; then he plays Bond for twenty minutes from the dubbing booth. We found it stranger than the film intended. The face is the star's and the sound is a character actor's, and for a stretch Bond is more interesting to listen to than Lazenby ever made him. It is the most Baker did in a Bond film, and he did it unseen.
That was the shape of his career. He came out of Lancing College and repertory theatre with the height and the vowels of a man who gives orders, and 1950s British cinema put them straight to work: a debut in The Intruder (1953), then Flight Lieutenant Maltby in The Dam Busters (1955), the film that made him. For a few years he was a leading man. Then the kitchen sink came in, and an actor built to stand in a well-cut uniform had nowhere much to stand. The film stardom the mid-1950s seemed to promise never arrived.
Television took him and, we think, suited him better. There is the New Number Two in The Prisoner (1967). There is Tiberius in I, Claudius (1976), the BBC's Rome, where the authority he had lent to airmen and captains was put to darker use. And from 1987 to 2000 there is Reg Wexford in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, a provincial inspector with a West Country burr who is allowed to be wrong, with Louie Ramsay as his wife twenty-three times over. Our two Bond reviews are the only ones we have published, and they catch him at the edge of the frame: Bray for a few minutes, Captain Benson in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) for fewer.
What he could do, and did for half a century, was make command look ordinary. He did not perform authority; he assumed people would do as he said and got on with the scene. That is rarer than it sounds, and it is why a film with no faith in its star reached for his voice. What he was seldom asked to do was be the story. He was the man the story reported to.
The Bray stretch of On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the place to test how far the voice alone can carry: a minute with the eyes shut, then a minute with them open. The measure of what Baker was doing is how much is missed when Lazenby gets his own back.
Biography
George Baker (born George Morris Baker) was an English actor and writer. He appeared in numerous films and television series from the 1950s to the 2000s, including an uncredited role as a NASA engineer in You Only Live Twice (1967).
He played Sir Hilary Bray, a heraldry expert, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and Captain Benson in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Baker was also known for portraying Tiberius in the BBC series I, Claudius (1976) and Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987–2000). He had a stage career that included work with the Old Vic company.
Ian Fleming reportedly considered Baker for the role of James Bond, though the part went to Sean Connery. Baker received an MBE and was active until 2007.
