Early Life
Baker was born and raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in a Roman Catholic family, the daughter of Virginia (née Duffy) and William Watson Baker, who was a traveling salesman. Baker's parents separated when she was eight years old and she moved with her mother and younger sister, Virginia, to Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania.
Baker attended high school in Greensburg, and then moved with her family to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she attended St. Pete Junior College. After spending a year in college, she began working as a magician's assistant as well as joining a dance company. In 1951, Baker moved to New York City and studied acting under Lee Strasberg, eventually becoming part of the famed Actor's Studio, where she was an acquaintance of Marilyn Monroe and became good friends with James Dean.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)