Walked tall by tackling tough roles

ALL and rather menacing, with a heavy Texas drawl, Joe Don Baker was often cast as the tough guy, on either side of the law.

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In a career that spanned nearly six decades, he was an action star in at least 30 films, from Westerns to spy thrillers, yet screen fans will perhaps know him best from his roles in the Bond films.

He played the megalomaniacal villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights in 1987, and Jack Wade, a CIA agent, in both 1995's GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.

His other roles saw him play trial lawyer Gerry Spence in The Siege At Ruby Ridge, the brilliant private investigator Claude Kersek in Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, the farmer holding off aliens with a shotgun in Mars Attacks! and he stole scenes from James Caan’s Phillip Marlowe, playing his corrupt father-in-law in Poodle Springs.