Stanley Baker - Producer

Producer

Baker wanted to move into production, and to this end formed his own company, Diamond Films. While making Sodom and Gomorrah (1963) he struck up a relationship with Joseph E. Levine which enabled him to raise the money for Zulu (1964), directed by Endfield. This was a massive success at the box office and helped make a star of Michael Caine. Baker played the lead part of Lieutenant John Chard VC in what remains his best-remembered-role. Baker later owned Chard's Victoria Cross and Zulu War Medal from 1972 until his death in 1976. (Chard died at age 49 in 1897, only a year older than Baker at his death; both died of cancer).

Baker then made two more films in Africa, Dingaka (1965) and Sands of the Kalahari (1965), also producing the latter. Neither was as successful as Zulu. A planned film version of Wilbur Smith's novel, When the Lion Feeds did not eventuate.

He then formed a new production company, Oakhurst Productions, in association with Michael Deeley, which produced such films as Robbery (1967), The Italian Job (1968) and Where's Jack? (1969). Baker starred in some of these and continued to act for other producers, giving a particularly fine performance in Joseph Losey's Accident (1967).