Roy Ward Baker

Directing·Dec 19, 1916·London, England

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Roy Ward Baker was an English film director born in London on 19 December 1916. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for best foreign English language film in 1959. His later career was varied, and included many horror films and television shows. Baker's early career, from 1934 to 1939, was spent working for Gainsborough Pictures, a British film production company based in Islington, North London, famous for its prestige productions. His first jobs were menial - making tea for crew members, for example - but by 1938 he had risen through the ranks to work as assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. He served in the army during World War II, until transferring to the Army Kinematograph Unit in 1943 in order to make better use of skills developed in his pre-war career producing documentaries and teaching materials for troops. One of his superiors at the time was novelist Eric Ambler. It was he who gave Baker his first big break directing The October Man, from an Ambler screenplay, in 1947. Ambler also adapted Walter Lord's A Night to Remember for Baker's 1958 screen version. During the early 1950s, Baker worked for three years in Hollywood where he directed Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) and Robert Ryan in 3D film noir Inferno (1953). He returned to the UK for the latter part of the decade, but defected to television in the early 1960s. He directed episodes of The Avengers, The Saint and The Champions - all adventure series created with an eye on the American market. The low-budget ethic of television production made him well-suited to his next career move into cheaply produced but lavish-looking British horror films. He directed, amongst others, Quatermass and the Pit (1967) The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Scars of Dracula (1970) for Hammer, and Asylum (1972) for Amicus. In the latter part of the 1970s he returned to television, and throughout the 1980s continued to work in Television. He retired in 1992.

Film	Credit
The Masks of Death1984 · Director	Director
The Monster Club1981 · Director	Director
DDeath Becomes Me1979 · Director	Director
The Switch1976 · Director	Director
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires1974 · Director	Director
Mission: Monte Carlo1974 · Director	Director
And Now the Screaming Starts!1973 · Director	Director
The Vault of Horror1973 · Director	Director
Asylum1972 · Director	Director
Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde1971 · Director	Director
Scars of Dracula1970 · Director	Director
The Vampire Lovers1970 · Director	Director
Foreign Exchange1970 · Director	Director
The Spy Killer1969 · Director	Director
Moon Zero Two1969 · Director	Director
The Fiction Makers1968 · Director	Director
The Anniversary1968 · Director	Director
Quatermass and the Pit1967 · Director	Director
Two Left Feet1963 · Director	Director
The Valiant1962 · Director	Director
Flame in the Streets1961 · Director, Producer	Director, Producer
The Singer Not the Song1961 · Director, Producer	Director, Producer
A Night to Remember1958 · Director	Director
The One That Got Away1957 · Director	Director
Tiger in the Smoke1956 · Director	Director
Jacqueline1956 · Director	Director
Passage Home1955 · Director	Director
Inferno1953 · Director	Director
Night Without Sleep1952 · Director	Director
Don't Bother to Knock1952 · Director	Director
The House in the Square1951 · Director	Director
Highly Dangerous1950 · Director	Director
Morning Departure1950 · Director	Director
Paper Orchid1949 · Director	Director
The Weaker Sex1948 · Director	Director
The October Man1947 · Director	Director
WWhat's the Next Job?1945 · Director	Director
RRead All About It1945 · Director	Director